Brookwood Medical Center
Brookwood Medical Center's campus is located in Homewood.
Negotiations to merge Baptist Health System and Tenet Healthcare Corporation — which owns Brookwood Medical Center — are finally complete, the company announced earlier this week. As part of the joint venture deal, Tenet will be the majority partner and manage the network’s operations.
Baptist Health System’s four hospitals — Citizens Baptist Medical Center, Princeton Baptist Medical Center, Shelby Baptist Medical Center and Walker Baptist Medical Center — will join with Brookwood Medical Center to create a new system with more than 1,700 licensed beds, nine outpatient centers and 68 physician clinics. More than 7,000 employees and approximately 1,500 affiliated physicians will be part of the partnership.
“We are very excited about this innovative partnership that will benefit patients in our communities by providing integrated care over a broader region on a more cost-efficient basis,” said Garry Gause, chief executive officer for Tenet Healthcare’s Southern Region, in a statement. “The combined organization will help us continue to expand our footprint and we will be well-positioned to thrive in an ever-changing healthcare industry.”
Keith Parrott, chief executive officer of the new organization, who previously served as CEO of Baptist Health System, said the catalyst for the merge was the current state of healthcare across the nation.
“If you look at where healthcare is in the United States, it continues to become more confusing, more expensive,” he said. “Healthcare needs to be better coordinated, less expensive and easier to understand. All of that is part of our goal.”
Parrot said that Brookwood and Baptist’s overlap in consistency of thought meant a merge made sense.
“We have the opportunity, as a newly combined company with the right geographic coverage, to deliver excellence across all service lines and really start to coordinate care as well as address the broader issues of access and affordability.”
The deal also includes $250 million in capital investments set aside for improvements at Brookwood and Baptist's hospitals over the next five years, said Parrot.
Changes will come slowly at first, he said, as the company first needs to meet with its physicians and employees to hear their thoughts on what the merge should entail. “We need to come together to build a new network,” said Parrot. “Understand the cultures and get to know each other.”
The brand’s name, he said, will be carefully selected. Parrot said the company understands that both the Brookwood and Baptist names carry significant weight in Birmingham.
When asked about whether the merger will result in either positions being eliminated or added, Parrot said that with any company, merger or not, changes can occur.