Alumni Spotlight: Calvin Hung
Calvin Hung, MHA ’06, FACHE, works for Carolinas HealthCare System (CHS) Pineville as the Inpatient Rehabilitation Administrator. Outside of work, Calvin is active in the Greater Charlotte Healthcare Executives Group (GCHEG), where he served as President in 2012, and the American College of Healthcare Executives, where he is a fellow and served on national committees. Furthermore, in February 2013 he received the Regents Award for North Carolina-Early Career Healthcare Executive.
Calvin’s background is in biology and physical therapy. Prior to starting the MHA Program, he worked as a Physical Therapist at WakeMed. He then transitioned to Mercy where he completed his MHA internship as an Acute Care Manager. After graduation, Calvin moved to Carolinas Medical Center (CMC) before transitioning to Pineville in 2013.
The Pineville Inpatient Rehabilitation unit, opened in October 2013, has 29 beds, and operates at 80% capacity. It is currently in the 85th percentile for patient experience, the best in the last quarter compared to other inpatient rehabilitation units in the region. Calvin enjoys working in Inpatient Rehabilitation because he sees patients on their last stop before going home. Therefore, rounding with his patients every day is important to him.
In his current role as administrator, Calvin encounters the changing trends and rules of healthcare. Due to decreases in reimbursement rates, Calvin has struggled with the triple lane aim, attempting to improve quality of care and the health of populations, while reducing the per capita cost of healthcare. He also has noticed that patients want increased transparency of their costs. Patients are becoming more knowledgeable about the cost of healthcare. Calvin observes his patients applying this knowledge when debating whether to go to a hospital affiliated rehabilitation center or a community one, which is less expensive but, has fewer resources.
Based upon his work with CHS Pineville, GCHEG and ACHE, Calvin received the ACHE Regents Award for North Carolina-Early Career Healthcare Executive. The award recognized Calvin’s demonstrated leadership ability, innovation and creative management, and executive capability in developing his organization and promoting its growth and stature in the community as well as active engagement in local, state, or provincial hospital and health association activities, participation in community activities and projects, and demonstration of participation in College activities and interest in assisting ACHE achieve its objectives.
Calvin credits UNC Charlotte for providing him essential health administration knowledge, building his capacity to recognize and adapt to quick changes, and imparting the values of networking and diversity. His advice for current students is to, “get involved with CHESO and ACHE. Without the connections I made at UNC Charlotte, I would not be in the great position I am today.”