The story
Early years
The Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) was founded in 1968 in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas F. Frist Sr., Thomas F. Frist Jr. and Jack C. Massey. The founders envisioned a company that would bring together hospitals to deliver patient-focused care while using the combined resources of the organization to strengthen hospitals and improve the practice of medicine. The company began with Nashville's Park View Hospital, which the elder Frist had founded in 1960 with other doctors and where he was chief executive.
The company included 11 hospitals when it filed its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in 1969 and had 26 hospitals and 3,000 beds by the end of the year.
Growth and merger
The 1970s were characterized by rapid growth in the industry and for HCA Healthcare. In the early 1980s, the focus shifted to consolidation with HCA Healthcare acquiring General Care Corporation, General Health Services, Hospital Affiliates International and Health Care Corporation. By the end of 1981, the company operated 349 hospitals with more than 49,000 beds. Operating revenues had grown to $2.4 billion.
In 1987, HCA Healthcare, which had grown to operate 463 hospitals (255 owned and 208 managed), spun off HealthTrust, a privately owned, 104-hospital company. Believing its stock was undervalued, the company completed a $5.1 billion leveraged management buyout led by chairman Thomas F. Frist Jr. in 1988. HCA Healthcare re-emerged as a public company in 1992.
In February 1994, HCA Healthcare merged with Louisville, Kentucky-based Columbia Hospital Corporation, which earlier had acquired 73 hospitals of Galen Health Care from Humana,
to form Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation. Related names of note include HCA International and Health Corporation of America.
Columbia Hospital Corporation
In 1988, Rick Scott and Richard Rainwater each put up $125,000 in working capital in their new company, Columbia Hospital Corporation; they borrowed the remaining money needed to purchase two struggling hospitals in El Paso for $60 million. Then they acquired a neighboring hospital and shut it down. Within a year, the remaining two were doing much better. By the end of 1989, Columbia Hospital Corporation owned four hospitals with a total of 833 beds.
In 1992, Columbia made a stock purchase of Basic American Medical, which owned eight hospitals, primarily in southwestern Florida. In September 1993, Columbia did another stock purchase, worth $3.4 billion, of Galen Healthcare, which had been spun off by Humana Inc. several months earlier. At the time, Galen had approximately 90 hospitals. After the purchase, Galen stockholders had 82% of the stock in the combined company, with Scott still running the company.
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Recent history
On November 17, 2006, HCA became a private company for the third time when it completed a merger in which the company was acquired by a private investor group including affiliates of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Bain Capital, together with Merrill Lynch and HCA Healthcare founder Thomas F. Frist Jr. The total transaction was valued at approximately $33 billion, making it the largest leveraged buyout in history at the time, eclipsing the 1989 buyout of RJR Nabisco.
In May 2010, HCA announced that the corporation would once again go public with an expected $4.6-billion IPO as HCA Holdings, Inc. In March 2011, HCA sold 126.2 million shares for $30 each, raising about $3.79 billion, at that time, the largest private-equity backed IPO in U.S. history. In May 2017, the corporation was renamed HCA Healthcare.
In December 2018, a historical marker was installed in the parking lot of HCA's Sarah Cannon Cancer Center in Nashville, formerly the location of HCA's first hospital, Park View Hospital.
In 2018, the company was ranked No. 67 in the 2019 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
In May 2021, the company finalized a deal with Google to develop healthcare algorithms using patient records. In August 2021, HCA announced a deal with venture capital firm General Catalyst to develop digital solutions to streamline workflows and improve patient care; as part of the deal, HCA sold its healthcare app development firm PatientKeeper to General Catalyst's portfolio company Commure.
In April 2022, HCA Healthcare announced a $1.5 million partnership with Florida International University's Nicole Wertheim college of Nursing and Health Sciences, to expand its facilities to address the national nursing shortage.
In October 2022, LCMC Health in partnership with Tulane University announced that it would acquire Tulane Medical Center, Lakeview Regional Medical Center, and Tulane Lakeside Hospital from HCA for $150 million pending regulatory approval.
In March 2024, it was announced HCA had completed the sale of West Hills Hospital and Medical Center and related assets in Los Angeles, California to UCLA Health, for an undisclosed amount.
From Wikipedia’s article on HCA Healthcare, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8