Hospital CFO brings decades of experience to Truist event

Soon after he landed a job in healthcare right out of college, Chris Denton '93, B.S. '95, realized he'd found his zone.

"I love hospitals," he said recently, "They're the most amazing places. They're like little cities that run 24/7."

Since graduating, Denton has accumulated considerable experience within those systems. This month, he marked his 20th year of service as chief financial officer with Henrico Doctors' Hospital in Richmond, Virginia. Prior to that, he was the CFO and chief operating officer at New Hampshire's Parkland Medical Center, with previous stints at facilities in Florida and Virginia.

On Oct. 15, Denton was the guest speaker at Radford's Fall 2026 Truist Leadership Lecture Series, presented by the Davis College of Business and Economics and the Truist Financial Corporation.

The audience filled Kyle Hall's third-floor conference room, and Denton's address, "The Business of Healthcare," offered them an insider's look at the financial, operational and human realities of running a modern American hospital - starting with his view of those facilities as cities that never sleep, as complex entities that must always remain open and available to their communities.

"We can't close, no matter what. We can't stop," he said at the top of his talk.

While hospitals obviously employ doctors and nurses and therapists and other medical professionals with a direct link to patients, Denton also pointed to the vital background staffers - plumbers and electricians, office and cafeteria workers, maintenance crews and security - who form a vast mosaic of essential personnel.

"It takes that entire team to make a hospital click, to make a hospital run, to make sure it can be at its absolute very best," Denton said.

In addressing the current costs of healthcare, he maintained that understanding the expenses involved often requires looking beyond a hospital bill, toward forces like rising labor and supply costs as well as expensive new technologies.

The various ways hospitals take payments - Medicare and Medicaid and commercial insurance, coupled with patients who have no coverage - also present extremely different financial circumstances for hospitals, he said. While commercially insured patients often help hospitals offset losses, government reimbursement doesn't always cover the full cost of care, he said, leaving a crunch that's felt most often by rural hospitals, which may lack the patient volume, specialized physicians and advanced procedures most facilities need to remain financially viable.

Eighteen percent of U.S. GDP is spent on healthcare, he explained, but he also pointed to ongoing advances in treatment, saying procedures that once required extended hospital stays can now come with much shorter recovery periods.

Operational efficiency is part of that. Denton said hospitals have been increasingly able to leverage data and performance measures to improve patient flow and accelerate diagnoses, reducing unnecessary hospital stays and delivering better outcomes, and he's recently seen outpatient procedures rise to 57%, leaving inpatient numbers at 43%.

As he closed, Denton reminded students that financial concerns should never eclipse the purpose of their business.

"If any of you choose healthcare as a profession, the question you have to ask yourself - every time you make a decision - is 'Is this the right thing for a patient?' I don't care what your job is … 'Is this the right thing for the patient?'"

Davis College Dean Donna McCloskey introduced Denton's address and told the audience the healthcare industry offers some of the clearest examples of why business and education matter and often extend beyond traditional career paths.

"For our students, I think today's conversation will help you think more broadly about where your education might take you," McCloskey said. "Whether you're studying accounting, finance, management, marketing, information systems or economics, you've something to contribute to this industry.

"And perhaps more importantly, I hope you'll think about the responsibility that comes with leadership.