Customer StoriesHCA Healthcare Is Tackling Urgent Care’s Biggest Problem: Friction
How Dr. Sonya Wilson and HCA are reframing the role of technology to improve connection, efficiency, and the patient experience
Urgent care has spent the last decade optimizing for speed.
More patients per hour. Shorter wait times. Faster documentation. These improvements matter, but they have not solved the underlying issue. Even in highly efficient clinics, friction still exists across the care experience.
It shows up in documentation workflows, in intake bottlenecks, in billing confusion, and in the subtle ways technology pulls attention away from the patient sitting in front of the provider.
What leading organizations are recognizing now is that the next phase of transformation is not about accelerating those systems. It is about removing the friction altogether so care can happen more naturally.
At HCA Healthcare, that shift is already underway.
Dr. Sonya Wilson, Chief Medical Information Officer for Physician Services at HCA Healthcare, is helping lead that effort by rethinking how technology supports care across the entire patient journey. Her role sits at the intersection of clinical care, operations, and IT, working to ensure systems align with how providers actually deliver care in fast-paced environments like urgent care.
The Challenge
Friction Compounds Across the Care Experience
In urgent care, friction rarely comes from a single source. It builds across the entire visit, from the moment a patient schedules an appointment to the final bill they receive afterward.
Documentation is one of the most visible pressure points. For every eight hours physicians spend with patients, more than five additional hours are spent in the EHR. In shorter visits, nearly nine minutes of charting are required for every fifteen minutes of patient time. That imbalance affects how providers work, how patients are engaged, and how care is delivered day to day. (ama-assn.org, tebra.com)
But the issue extends beyond documentation.
Patients often arrive uncertain about cost and coverage. Nearly 7 in 10 report being surprised by the cost of routine care, even after trying to prepare in advance. More than half say they have received an unexpected medical bill. Those gaps in understanding can delay care, disrupt trust, and complicate decision-making during the visit itself. (tebra.com, neolytix.com)
Operationally, these challenges show up as bottlenecks, rework, and disconnected workflows. Clinically, they show up as divided attention and compressed interactions.
Dr. Wilson sits at the center of these dynamics, helping align clinical teams, operations, and technology across one of the largest healthcare organizations in the country.
“We translate for our providers so that we can communicate between what they’re doing, the providers, the clinic staff, IT, and our vendors… so that we can make sure that we’re delivering what our patients need, what the staff needs, and what our operations needs so that our clinics can be here tomorrow.”
For HCA, solving these challenges means stepping back and rethinking the role technology should play in care.
The Approach
Making Technology Less Visible, More Valuable
Instead of focusing on new features or additional systems, HCA has concentrated on how to make technology less intrusive within the care experience.
Dr. Wilson describes the goal in simple terms:
“Part of what my goal was to see how can we help care for patients… with technology being almost an afterthought. That it works for me… it’s in the background.”
That shift changes how innovation is evaluated. Success is no longer defined by what technology can do, but by how little it interrupts the interaction between provider and patient.
This is especially relevant in urgent care environments, where time is limited and relationships are formed quickly.
“I’m there engaging with the patient to deliver the best care and connection I can… especially in urgent care, I have minutes, seconds to develop a relationship.”
When technology competes for attention, even briefly, it affects that interaction. When it recedes into the background, it allows providers to stay focused where it matters most.
What’s Changing AI That Supports The Entire Visit
HCA’s work with AI reflects this philosophy in practice. Rather than introducing entirely new workflows, the focus has been on reducing the burden within existing ones.
Ambient documentation is one of the clearest examples.
Instead of requiring providers to step away from the patient to complete notes, ambient AI captures and structures information during the conversation itself. The outcome has been notable, not just in efficiency but in how providers experience the technology.
“Providers [are] coming and telling me that they didn’t even know how to say it as well as the ambient technology was telling them.”
That observation points to a shift from documentation support to real-time augmentation. Providers are no longer translating their thoughts after the encounter. The documentation is created alongside them.
Research supports the impact. Ambient AI has been associated with reductions in documentation time, decreases in after-hours work, and improvements in reported burnout. Providers also report lower cognitive load and improved focus during patient interactions. (jamanetwork.com, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, academic.oup.com)
The same principle is being applied earlier in the care journey.
“Its ability to do some of the insurance work and prep work with the patient before they even walk in the door… so that we understand what their expectation is and their financial obligation.”
By surfacing financial and administrative information before the visit, providers enter the encounter with a more complete understanding of the patient’s situation.
“When we’re making a plan… it’s something that they can actually do.”
This alignment between clinical decisions and patient reality is where many of the most meaningful improvements take place.
The Application
Connecting the Experience From Start to Finish
Individually, these changes reduce friction at specific points in the workflow. Together, they point to something larger.
Urgent care is not a single process. It is a connected system that spans intake, clinical care, and financial workflows.
“Urgent care isn’t just one thing. There’s lots that we do… from occupational medicine… to virtual care… to… coughs, colds, lacerations, broken bones.”
Each of those services introduces its own complexity. When systems are disconnected, that complexity turns into friction.
This is where platforms built specifically for urgent care play a critical role.
Experity’s platform connects the full care journey, integrating digital intake, clinical documentation, and revenue cycle workflows into a single system. It is used by roughly half of the U.S. urgent care market and has supported more than 100 million patient visits in recent years.
Within that connected environment:
- Patients move through intake with fewer delays and clearer expectations
- Providers document care in real time without stepping away from the interaction
- Financial workflows align more closely with the clinical encounter
The experience becomes more continuous and less fragmented.
Results
The Outcome: Less Friction, More Focus On Care
As these changes take hold, the results show up in both operational performance and day-to-day experience.
Organizations are seeing faster chart completion, in some cases reducing documentation time by up to 50 percent. Patient throughput improves, with visits averaging closer to 35 minutes in optimized settings. Administrative work outside of scheduled hours decreases.
At the same time, the qualitative impact becomes just as important.
Providers are able to stay more present during visits. Patients have clearer expectations before care begins and fewer surprises afterward. Staff spend less time managing exceptions and manual work.
Technology becomes less visible, but its effect becomes more significant.
Results
A Shift That Extends Beyond One Organization
Demand for urgent care continues to grow, with utilization increasing significantly and spending rising by more than 50 percent in recent years (healthcostinstitute.org).
Meeting that demand requires more than scaling operations. It requires rethinking how care is delivered at every step.
HCA’s approach reflects a broader shift taking shape across the market. Organizations are beginning to evaluate technology based on how well it removes friction from the care journey rather than how many capabilities it adds.
The implication is straightforward. When friction is reduced, providers gain time, patients gain clarity, and care becomes more connected.
In an environment defined by speed and complexity, that shift may be the most important one still ahead.
Build an Urgent Care Experience That Feels Effortless
From digital intake and AI-powered documentation to patient engagement and revenue cycle management, Experity connects every stage of the patient journey in one purpose-built platform. Discover how reducing friction can improve outcomes across your organization.
