Q&A: New Methodist Hospital Northeast COO Cameron Howard discusses his hopes for the hospital’s future

I was born and raised in Austin, and I was always close with San Antonio. My grandfather was a veteran in World War 2, and he settled in San Antonio after his deployment. So, I kind of grew up going back and forth to San Antonio and Austin, and central Texas has always been really close to my heart.

I went to Baylor University and then I went to Trinity University for my graduate studies. They have a remarkable MHA program there. After I completed that, I went back to Austin with HCA and in particular went to St. David’s.

Why did you choose Methodist Hospital Northeast?

I was very glad to be joining Methodist Hospital Northeast and this division. I love the partnership between the Methodist [Healthcare] Ministries and HCA; I think that a 50/50 partnership between a for-profit and non-profit entity is great model for health care.

In particular, I love this hospital for its growth opportunity and being able to serve this community which is rapidly growing. It is an exciting place to be.

Speaking of area growth, how has growth affected how Methodist Hospital operates?

As you know, Texas, and some of the major metropolitan areas are experiencing rapid population growth. I think the COVID pandemic expedited more people to move to Texas.

Clearly the pandemic put an acute pressure on all hospital systems, between the number of inpatient beds and everything else. We are starting to see that as COVID numbers are decreasing, so are the number of hospitalizations.

I think the question now is as we have more covered lives in our area, how do we best serve our communities, and particularly for this hospital, how do we best serve Bexar, Guadalupe and Comal counties which have all experienced great growth?

To answer that specifically, I would say that Methodist Hospital Northeast has added 60 beds in the last year and a half. We have also expanded our emergency department on our primary campus, and we have opened up two freestanding emergency departments close to Methodist Hospital Northeast, and we have a third freestanding emergency department to be opened later this summer in New Braunfels.

How does growth affect future plans?

There are plans to do expansions, we are just making sure that we are coordinating that at working with both of our managing partners, Methodist [Healthcare] Ministries and HCA, to make sure we are doing that in a judicious fashion.

I have had the opportunity to be part of some of those capital proposals, and I am excited about what that might mean for this campus. I am just not at the point yet to be able to share that.

In your new position, what do you hope to accomplish with the hospital during your time as COO?

I very much view my role as supporting and empowering the team. I am not the person who is hands on in the ER, and I am not the person who is passing the instruments in the OR, but my role is to support those people because they are directly impacting the patient’s care and patient’s lives.

It really comes down to how we best support patient care needs in an indirect way. Maybe that is through process, through resource allocation, through trying to predict future growth and what we need to be doing now in 2022 to prepare for 2025.

Really, I have a ton of fun supporting those teams and working with our physicians and with our colleagues.