View Comments Through a year of COVID-19 pandemic challenges and in the face of a national nurses shortage, along with local doctors leaving Mission, HCA Healthcare in North Carolina is still going strong, according to Greg Lowe, president of HCA Healthcare North Carolina. Lowe updated the Council of Independent Business Owners on everything the hospital system has been doing over the past year at the group's May 7 meeting. Over the past year and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the system has conducted 51,000 telehealth encounters and more than 2.1 million patient encounters. There are 24 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 at Mission Hospital in Asheville, he said, and a total 32 system-wide as of May 7.