New chief seeks to expand care

Douglas Duffield's career took an indirect route from the high-tech world of Microsoft to sub-Saharan Africa to Pasco County, where he recently was named chief executive officer of Florida Hospital Zephyrhills.

Duffield joined the hospital administration in January as chief operating officer. The merger this summer of Adventist Health System and University Community Health facilitated his promotion to CEO after hospital President John R. Harding was named CEO of the newly-established Florida Hospital Tampa Bay Region.

"The merger is going to bring a lot of benefits to the Tampa Bay region," Duffield said. "My focus is to serve this community and expand access to care right here in Zephyrhills."

One of his primary goals is to reduce and eliminate unnecessary wait times for patients during doctor visits. There's no reason, he said, for a routine doctor's visit to last two hours when most patients can be treated in 30 minutes or less.

"When I look into the future, I see no-wait clinics," he said.

In his role as COO, Duffield helped implement procedures to streamline medical visits. "It's not just working faster," he said. "It's taking the waste and inefficiency that causes you to wait. One of the things we do is pre-register patients before they arrive so they don't have to sit around in the waiting room when they get here."

Duffield said he taps into his background as a software developer for companies such as Intel and Microsoft to increase efficiency in the delivery of medical care. It's a skill set that has taken him all over the world, including the African nation of Lesotho. Duffield and his wife spent their first year of marriage working at a faith-based hospital where they tracked the AIDS pandemic, established a computer training school and helped oversee major capital building projects.

Laura Kinsler