WHY Hoover NEEDS A HOSPITAL.
Hoover is the sixth largest city in Alabama, with a population approaching 80,000 residents. It is the largest city in the state without a hospital. In fact, there are more than 70 smaller Alabama cities with hospitals, including Decatur, Dothan and Gadsden – each with two hospitals. Hoover is the only city in Alabama with a population greater than 60,000 residents that does not have a hospital.
There is clearly a void in accessing healthcare for those who live in Hoover. Travel times to Birmingham hospitals can routinely exceed 30 to 45 minutes, and approach an hour based on point of origin, weather, and traffic. Consider these facts:
- Between 1990 and 2004, travel on Alabama’s interstate highways increased by approximately 60 percent.
- Today, 34 percent of Alabama’s urban interstate highways are considered congested and 20 percent of rural interstate highways are considered congested.
- By 2026, travel on Alabama’s interstate highway system is projected to increase by another 60 percent.
- Hospital access affects more than a patient’s initial visit. Access also includes a patient’s family and the burden of back-and-forth travel for others when someone is hospitalized. Combined with concerns about the rising cost of gasoline, having a hospital close to home is unquestionably more than an issue of convenience.
The number of emergency medical calls to the Hoover Fire Department increased by 15 percent from 2005 to 2006, going from 5,020 to 5,786.
Quality of Life Brings Growth.
The Birmingham-Hoover Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) population will increase by nearly 25 percent between 2000 and 2025, based on Census Bureau data. Much of this growth will occur within the City of Hoover, which will have an estimated 29,620 households by year’s end. Meanwhile, access to convenient healthcare remains near the level when Hoover was founded in 1967.
- There is no hospital located in the southern part of Jefferson County where
the most explosive growth has been and is expected to continue. Most of the hospitals in Jefferson County were built before Hoover was even incorporated as a city, and are thus located in the central or northern portions of the county. - Residents of Hoover currently must travel outside the city to receive hospital care. Thus, many Hoover residents have inadequate access to hospital care and emergency services, which face growing pressure due to increased use.
- Over the past 40 years, an outstanding quality of life has resulted in dynamic population growth and shifts throughout the 5,300 square-mile Birmingham-Hoover MSA, much of it to Hoover. However, 80 percent of licensed hospital beds in the Birmingham-Hoover MSA are concentrated in a five-mile radius from Birmingham’s Southside.
Caring for the Community.
Baptist Health System, the non-profit healthcare ministry of the Birmingham Baptist Association, has been committed to serving and caring for the health needs of our community since our founding in 1922. Our four hospitals, Princeton Baptist, Shelby Baptist, Walker Baptist (in Jasper), and Citizens Baptist (in Talladega) play a major role in the health of those they serve through traditional inpatient and outpatient clinical care, through community outreach and wellness education, and by responding to their communities when specific needs arise.
Resources are continually invested at each hospital to assure the highest level of patient care, including:
- more than $73 million on the Princeton campus in the past five years with more than $75 million in capital projects planned at Princeton over the next three years
- a $90 million bed tower project currently underway at Shelby Baptist
- a recently completed Women’s and Family Center at Walker Baptist
- the recent addition of a specialized Geriatrics unit and the planned development of a professional office building at Citizens Baptist