ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. — As group president and CEO for AdventHealth Florida and Clinical, Randy Haffner has long believed health care works best when hospitals collaborate. Now, serving as board chair of the Florida Hospital Association (FHA), he works alongside leaders from nearly 250 hospitals to improve access, support the health care workforce and advance policies that put patients and communities first. Together, they are shaping Florida’s health care future through connection, shared purpose and collective leadership.
Q: As FHA’s incoming board chair, how do you see your role supporting the priorities of FHA and the health care needs of Florida’s communities?
Haffner: It’s an honor to represent hospitals that care for Floridians at every stage of life. Florida is growing quickly, and with that comes both opportunity and responsibility. The Florida Hospital Association brings together leaders from every region to align policies and practices that expand access and strengthen care.
For me, it’s also a chance to help champion the people who make that care possible - the caregivers who show up every day with skill and compassion. That commitment to whole-person care is something I have seen firsthand across AdventHealth and throughout our state.
Q: What are some of the biggest opportunities and challenges facing Florida’s health care system right now?
Haffner: The priorities are clear: expanding access, supporting workforce, addressing behavioral health needs and ensuring sustainable funding for hospitals. Florida’s population growth has been historic, and hospitals are adapting to meet that demand.
We are also seeing the social side of health become more visible. Housing stability, transportation, nutrition, access to health insurance and mental well-being are essential to overall health. Across Florida, hospitals are increasingly working together to address these social drivers of health through community partnerships that extend care beyond the hospital. FHA helps elevate and support these efforts statewide, bringing members together to share best practices that connect patients with nutrition support, housing resources and follow-up care after discharge.
Similarly, the FHA is working to strengthen accountability among health insurance payors for administrative practices such as excessive prior authorization, delayed payments and downcoding that can disrupt patient care and strain hospitals.
Across the nearly 250 hospitals FHA represents statewide, payor administrative practices are increasingly disrupting patient care and driving unnecessary costs. In Florida alone, prior authorization delays kept 6,482 patients hospitalized for more than 15,500 additional days in 2024 as they waited for post-acute care approvals – days that add stress for patients and families and inflate the cost of care for everyone. At some Florida health systems, more than half of denials are reversed only after time-consuming appeals that pull clinicians away from patient care.
Modernizing Florida’s insurance laws will help ensure timely access to care and fair reimbursement, so providers can remain focused on high quality care that is easier to navigate.
Q: Workforce challenges continue across the country. How are hospitals in Florida working to build and retain talent?
Haffner: It really comes down to two things – creating strong pathways into health care and caring for those who have already chosen this calling. Across Florida, hospitals are partnering with universities and technical schools to open more training opportunities.
Workforce development is a shared priority across FHA member hospitals. Throughout Florida, hospitals are partnering with universities, technical schools and residency programs to expand training pipelines and prepare the next generation of caregivers. Many FHA members, including AdventHealth, are investing in nursing education, simulation training and graduate medical education to ensure physicians and clinicians can train, grow and remain in Florida — particularly in rural and underserved communities.
Speaking of retention, investing in our incredible team members is equally important at keeping top talent in our state. We put intense focus into ensuring we provide safe environments, professional growth and mental health support so our workforce can thrive. When caregivers feel valued and supported, it shows in every patient interaction.
Q: Behavioral health has become a growing area of need. What progress are you seeing?
Haffner: There’s been a real shift in awareness. People are more willing to talk about mental health and seek help earlier.
Hospitals across Florida are expanding behavioral health access by integrating mental health services into primary care and strengthening partnerships with community and faith-based organizations. FHA plays a key role in supporting these collaborative models, which help ensure patients can address their physical, mental and spiritual health in a more connected way.
In the community, we’ve collaborated with groups across the state to offer Mental Health First Aid training, helping thousands of community members learn how to recognize and respond to a mental health challenge. To strengthen the talent pool of behavioral health practitioners, the state of Florida has also assisted in the creation of behavioral health teaching hospitals.
That work is complemented by broader efforts to reduce stigma and encourage early support, for example, AdventHealth initiatives like You Good? and Be a Mindleader, which normalize everyday mental health check-ins and help connect families to resources before a situation becomes a crisis.
I’m energized by the collaboration across the state that is making support more visible and accessible, yet there’s still so much more work to be done to keep this momentum moving forward.
Q: Innovation and technology are changing how care is delivered. How can they improve health outcomes for Floridians?
Haffner: Technology allows us to bring care closer to people and make it easier to navigate. Digital tools and telehealth have become part of everyday health care, especially for rural or underserved communities.
We’ve seen success when digital innovation complements personal connection. AdventHealth’s virtual care and digital scheduling platforms, for instance, are helping patients find and access care more easily while keeping communication with their providers at the center.
AI is helping us make care more personal at AdventHealth. Ambient AI tools capture documentation so clinicians can focus on patients, while AI-powered imaging triage and early warning models speed treatment for strokes and sepsis. We’re also piloting smarter scheduling and physician communication initiatives so patients can get answers and appointments faster, all guided by strong principles for safety and privacy.
Across Florida, hospitals are embracing similar advances that make health care more coordinated, transparent and human.
Q: What gives you the most optimism about the future of health care in Florida?
Haffner: For me, it’s the collaboration and the progress. Hospitals that might once have worked independently are now sharing best practices and uniting around common goals, whether that’s workforce development, behavioral health or emergency preparedness.
We saw that collaboration in action during recent hurricane seasons, when hospitals across regions supported one another to keep services running and communities safe.
Much progress has been made in Florida through unprecedented investments in health care. The Live Healthy Act, passed in 2024, invested nearly $800 million in health care, focusing on securing the workforce of the future, investing in research and significant increases in funding for behavioral health and rural hospitals. These investments illustrate Florida’s mindset for allowing health systems the flexibility to adapt to changing needs and act quickly to address our communities’ most urgent priorities.
That kind of teamwork, grounded in compassion and service, is what gives me confidence about where we are headed.
Q: Any final thoughts as you begin your term as FHA board chair?
Haffner: I am grateful for the opportunity to serve and for the FHA team whose leadership works tirelessly to make our state a healthier place to live.
Having a seat at the table to collaborate on Florida’s health care future allows for the opportunity to bring the experiences, perspectives and needs of AdventHealth’s team members and patients to key decisions impacting Floridians.
Together, we can keep Florida moving forward by expanding access and creating opportunities for our frontline workforce to deliver the kind of care that truly meets the needs of patients and the communities they serve.
