Samuel N. Hazen - Chief Operating Officer
Management
I think when you think about HCA's growth strategy, and we've spoken to this numerous times, we think, first and foremost, we have incredible markets where we do business. And those markets are yielding, on a composite basis, across the company approximately 2% increase in demand growth just coming from population growth, as well as aging baby boomers, increasing employment and so forth. On top of that, the company has achieved anywhere between 25 basis points to 40 basis points of market share gains over the past few years. And as we look forward, we see those basic components being similar to what I just laid out. And so next year's guidance includes about 2% to 2.5% demand growth at this particular point with our estimate, and then roughly 25 basis points to 30 basis points of market share gains. Our approach to gaining market share is clearly built around being the provider system of choice for our patients and for our physicians. And that involves four, five major dimensions that we invest in very, very aggressively. We monitor very, very closely. And those are centered around, do we have the right network of outpatient facilities and ease of access, if you will, in the HCA's facilities, building out comprehensive service lines, I mentioned that in my comments, and then, working with our physicians very, very effectively to enable them to do what they need to do for our patients. And we do that with one other dimension that we're investing in even more, and that's coordinating care across the HCA continuum and the HCA network. And that's yielding gains for us. Obviously, our capital spending is enhancing our growth, we believe, and putting us in a very strong competitive position within the markets. And then, finally, I think the competitive advantage that HCA has globally across these markets is that we have an incredible amount of best practice and solutions that we can export from one market to another and put that to use in a very timely go-to-market-quickly kind of way. And that gives us advantage, we believe, on all these dimensions, and globally, allows us to grow our business.