“I had the great opportunity to teach middle school students,” Mr. Cox said during a Becker’s Healthcare podcast. “If you can stand before a group of 30 middle school students, you can stand before any board of directors … it was great training for me. I never view myself as an ex-teacher. I think once you’re a teacher, you’re always a teacher.”
As healthcare continues to rapidly evolve, Mr. Cox emphasized that the industry demands lifelong learning, requiring leaders to embrace new responsibilities and perspectives, while cultivating culture in innovative ways.
Norton is committed to growth, and has seen expansion in recent months. The health system recently opened the $90 million Norton West Louisville Hospital in November 2024, the area’s first new hospital in more than 150 years.
“We decided that we were going to actually go talk to neighborhoods, communities and churches that were in these particular areas, in these particular neighborhoods, and we were going to ask questions and actually listen,” Mr. Cox said. “[So] much of what we heard, we were able to incorporate in the design, we were able to incorporate in the mechanics of how the facility works. We were able to do some design things that removed some barriers, that removed some fear and gave us the opportunity to rebuild all trust.”
The health system is piloting DAX Copilot, an AI-powered clinical documentation tool from Microsoft subsidiary Nuance, which is embedded within the Epic EHR and has become one of the most widely used generative AI solutions for clinical documentation. The tool uses ambient AI and natural language processing to listen to patient-clinician conversations, generate clinical notes in real-time and integrate them directly into the EHR.
“I’m very excited by what the future holds for us all from an artificial intelligence perspective,” Mr. Cox said. “We believe that healthcare is still very much a human touch, a great human interaction experience, but we think that [advancements in] AI can make us better, have better information and have those human beings really have a better opportunity to execute on information.”
Despite the challenges facing the industry, Mr. Cox remains optimistic about the future of healthcare and reaffirmed Norton’s commitment to innovation.
“In times of great change comes great opportunity,” he said. “We know that our system and so many others are going to stand up, just like we have through so many years and really answer the call that is needed in our country.”
