After serving as the director of the HCA Healthcare Gulf Coast Division Transfer Center, alumna Jenn Bowman has been promoted to vice president of patient experience.
Bowman has been a part of the HCA Healthcare Gulf Coast Division in Houston for two years and enjoys working for an organization that truly lives its mission and cares for its employees and patients. The Houston division is part of HCA, the largest for-profit health system in the U.S.
“We never back down for what is right for our patients and our communities,” said Bowman. “No matter what comes our way, we stand together through a common thread with uncommon strength. We care about our staff, our physicians and our patients.”
This was especially apparent when many employees put in extra hours to help with the Hurricane Harvey efforts, she said.
Many of the abilities Bowman learned at Newman have served her well during her time at HCA. Bowman graduated from Newman with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2007 and a Master of Business Administration in 2016.
She said, “I realized how blessed I was to start my journey as a Jet. At first, my focus was on just becoming a nurse and although that was a critical step, there was so much more that molded me into the adult I am today.”
At Newman, she learned team dynamics and leadership as a member of the dance team, mastered the skill of meeting preparation as a “Traditions and Transitions” facilitator, learned to be a host while helping at (Newman) registration days, balanced budgets as the intramurals coordinator and, of course, learned resilience through nursing school.
She found more than just her future career at Newman. Her husband of 12 years, Quinn Bowman, was a 20o6 graduate and the two now have daughters Jocelynn (7) and Regan (6) together.
As for her career, Bowman was drawn to HCA because of their mission. The HCA website states its mission: “Above all else, we are committed to the care and improvement of human life.”
Bowman said, “This (mission) is the reason that I became a nurse. I have always wanted to help people and we have the privilege to help affect someone’s life at a very critical moment.”
In her previous position, she supported 16 acute care hospitals, three specialty hospitals, 10 freestanding emergency rooms and nine ambulatory surgery centers. In her new role, she will continue that support as well as expand her reach to more than 10,000 physicians and 15,000 employees to achieve patient experience goals.
“In my previous role,” she said, “the goal was to grow the volume and contribution margins reporting to the division chief financial officer, which was an unusual reporting structure for a nurse. The goal was to drive as many patients to our facilities as quickly as possible. Now I have the pleasure of ensuring all the patients and families have an ideal experience as they enter, stay and leave our facilities.”
Some of her major responsibilities as vice president of patient experience will be engaging with facilities to develop proper action plans, providing support and direction to achieve favorable patient and family experience as well as coordinating and helping provide training classes to ensure the staff is exercising best practice initiatives.
One of her goals is to create a comprehensive strategy to be inclusive of team engagement and a culture of empathy. She also looks forward to empowering the patient’s voice, training staff and physicians on critical patient experience initiatives, bridging the gaps between all points of care and ensuring that bedside staff have the tools and technology necessary to be successful inpatient experience.
“I have felt the most fulfilled in my career working for HCA Gulf Coast Division because we care, we support and we continue to drive positive changes in health care,” she said.
