Thomas D. Sims,

MBA, CHT

 

As the son of a physician, Tom Sims became interested in health care at a young age. With a goal of pursuing a career in health care, Tom attended Dartmouth College where he received his bachelor’s degree in biology and psychology. During this time he also received his SCUBA certification which he was able to apply to his career years later. Subsequently Tom received an MBA in health care management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Following graduation from Wharton, Tom joined Booz Allen & Hamilton’s health care consulting practice, focusing on strategy and financial planning for health care organizations.  He subsequently was recruited to Arthur Young & Company (now Ernst & Young) to lead their healthcare strategy practice in the Southeast.  A few years later Tom joined Hospital Corporation of America, the nation’s largest operator of hospitals, where he led a team that provided strategic planning and marketing support to HCA’s owned and managed facilities across the country. 

While at HCA, Tom became interested in the emerging field of quality improvement and subsequently helped create the Center for Continuous Improvement, a business unit within Quorum Health Resources (formerly HCA Management Company) that provided education and consulting to health care leaders and their organizations.  During this time, Tom was part of a team from Wharton that traveled to Beijing, China to teach the fundamentals of quality improvement to Chinese hospital administrators and officials from the Ministry of Health.
 
Tom subsequently returned to management consulting and served in senior leadership roles for two of the country’s major healthcare consulting firms.  In this capacity, he combined his strategy and operations improvement skills to assist health care leaders improve the overall performance of their organizations. 

In 1998, Tom left management consulting to form a pioneering company specializing in the operation of freestanding hyperbaric medicine and rehabilitation facilities.  He served as Vice President and Executive Director of HyOx Medical Treatment Center and led the planning and development of the company’s prototype facility in Marietta, Georgia. During this time Tom and Chris Grant became hyperbaric colleagues. Over the next decade, Tom led HyOx’s efforts to become a Medicare-certified outpatient facility, a participating provider with all of the area’s major health plans, and accredited as a Clinical Hyperbaric Facility of Distinction by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society (UHMS).

Faced with a wonderful opportunity in 2008, Tom sold his interest in HyOx and returned to consulting. In 2009 Tom reconnected with his former colleague Chris Grant while attending a lecture. Realizing this was not just a chance encounter; the two saw the potential of joining forces and acted on it.

As a senior healthcare executive and management consultant with decades of experience in operations, strategy, continuous quality improvement, financial and program planning, and business development, Tom’s experience is ideal for supporting our large corporate clients as well as the individual practitioner.