Nashville's influence in health care is unparalleled. We're not done changing the industry.
Nashville may be known as “Music City,” but from an economic impact perspective, the region could easily be called the Health Care City.
Nashville’s health care industry has greater reach and touches more patients through health care delivery than any other city in the United States. With more than 900 health care companies – including the headquarters of 17 publicly traded health care companies – Nashville’s health care businesses operate in all 50 states, providing 500,000 jobs and generating $97 billion in annual revenue to the U.S. economy.
Nashville was the fifth largest recipient of capital investment in the first quarter of 2023, boasting two of the country’s largest venture fund investments — Monogram Health and Wellvana.
CareBridge was just named the fastest growing company in America by Inc Magazine.
HCA sparked the growth; health care companies compete but also collaborate
How did Nashville become the Health Care City? Since HCA’s founding in 1968, Nashville’s health care industry has grown exponentially. In those early decades, investor-owned hospital management companies drove the development of Nashville as a concentrated health care hub.
Today health care giants such as Brookdale Senior Living, Lifepoint Health, Community Health Systems, Acadia Health and many more have located their corporate headquarter operations here. Alongside the growth of these corporations came service firms and investment funds with specialized expertise to support the health care industry.
The vibrancy of this health care industry is no accident. In 1995, a group of visionary health care leaders worked together to establish the Nashville Health Care Council with the intention of making Nashville a health care industry capital. That spirit of collaboration continues today. While Nashville’s top executives may compete with one another in the broad market, they respect, collaborate with and champion one another within our community, making this an exceptional place for businesses to thrive.
The Nashville area is not the only health care hub in Tennessee
That spirit of collaboration continued with the launch of the inaugural Nashville Healthcare Sessions conference Sept. 18-22. This gathering of health care executives showcased the revolutionary ideas, emerging solutions and research discoveries that are happening in Nashville and transforming health care delivery nationwide.
While Nashville is the nation’s center point for health care services, Tennessee has a growing reputation as a location of choice for the health care and life sciences industry. West Tennessee is home to a multitude of medical device companies and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where research fuels the world’s cures for catastrophic childhood diseases. East Tennessee is home base for health care companies like TeamHealth, Ballad Health and 16 award winning medical centers. Some of the nation’s leading health care educational institutions are sprinkled across the state.
The Sessions conference was an opportunity to shine a bright light on Tennessee’s health care assets. The past decade has brought an explosion of new health care service models, investment paradigms and technologies forged within our community. At Sessions, we convened all these players to build relationships and practical innovation in health care delivery to share with the rest of the world.
Nashville’s unparalleled foundation of health care knowledge and networks will continue to be a powerful economic driver for our region and our state, while shaping improvements in patient care on a broad scale. For health care leaders looking for a dynamic and inviting place to make a difference and bring fresh ideas to fruition, there is no better place than Nashville and the state of Tennessee.
Apryl Childs-Potter is the president of the Nashville Health Care Council. Over a 20-year career in non-profit and corporate sectors, Apryl has helped translate data driven insights into strategies that transform organizations and the communities they serve. Her research insights have helped shape nationally recognized placemaking and policy efforts.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: As Nashville healthcare grows, collaboration across Tennessee is key
