If you’re looking to take the temperature of a city’s economic welfare, community health and access to healthcare facilities should be factors to consider. Shannon Terrell Gordon is the CEO of River Edge Behavioral Health Center. She said healthcare is a key factor in a community’s economic growth.
“Typically, healthcare provision and education are a community’s two largest employer segments and are the employers that offer the richest benefit packages, in terms of health insurance and retirement benefits. These are key economic multipliers in the community,” she said. “Additionally, when a prospect company evaluates a community regarding locating its enterprise there, access to healthcare for its employees is a key evaluation factor. Therefore, a strong healthcare system is foundational to a community’s economic vitality.”
The healthcare sector is the single largest part of Macon-Bibb’s economy. According to the 2013 One Macon Target Business Analysis & Marketing Review, the healthcare industry employed nearly 14,000–or close to 16 percent of all jobs within Macon-Bibb County. The report also noted that Macon-Bibb’s healthcare sector’s continued success is vital to the area’s future prosperity.
Here are just a few of our community’s excellent healthcare partners:
River Edge Behavioral Health
River Edge has served the Central Georgia community for more than 60 years. It provides services throughout Central Georgia, including Baldwin, Bibb, Crawford, Jones, Houston, Monroe, Peach, Putnam, Twiggs and Wilkinson counties. Bibb, Baldwin, Houston, Monroe and provides prevention, treatment, and support services for children, youth, families and adults who experience mental illness, addiction, co-occurring disorders, or developmental disabilities. River Edge currently employs more than 600 people (staff and contractors) and is one of the largest behavioral health providers in the State of Georgia.
Coliseum Health System
Coliseum Health System, which consists of two hospitals – Coliseum Medical Centers and Coliseum Northside Hospital, employees about 1,500 people. According to a Coliseum Health Systems report (which includes Fairview Park Hospital in Dublin), the system has a total economic impact of $231,247,685. The hospitals have 24-hour emergency rooms, inpatient and outpatient surgery options, rehabilitation programs, and diagnostic services. The Coliseum Center for Behavioral Health provides treatment to adults with psychiatric and addiction concerns.
Mercer Medicine
Mercer Medicine, a subsidiary of the Mercer University School of Medicine and Mercer Health Sciences Center, is a multi-specialty practice that employees more than 70 people. Mercer Medicine focuses on family medicine, internal medicine, and psychiatry, and its physicians are also professors and clinical instructors with the Mercer University School of Medicine. Mercer Medicine has five offices, all of which are located in or around downtown Macon.
Navicent Healthcare
Navicent Health, formerly The Medical Center of Central Georgia, is a private, not-for-profit, 637-bed hospital. Navicent is Level I Trauma Center and a three-time Magnet Designated hospital for nursing excellence nationwide.
According to a 2013 Georgia Hospital Association study, Navicent Health hospitals in Bibb and Peach counties generated $1,501,615,087 in revenue for the local and state economy. The report also noted that, during the same time period, Navicent Health hospitals provided almost $70 million in uncompensated care while sustaining approximately 12,000 full-time jobs throughout Bibb and Peach counties.
Navicent Health is also one of the premier teaching hospitals in the U.S. and serves as the primary teaching hospital for Mercer’s Medical School. It employs more than 4,600 people and a medical staff of more than 590 physicians.
