Patients, Baptist Health System Served Well By Innovative Neighborhood Hospital Concept
HOUSTON – July, 2023 – The Baptist Health System truly means it when it says, “Baptist Neighborhood Hospital is just around the corner.”
The Baptist Neighborhood Hospital-Converse, 6491 Woodlake Parkway in San Antonio, will open soon as part of the Baptist Health System’s partnership with Texas-based Emerus Holdings Inc. The partnership’s 10th neighborhood hospital in the Alamo City is in the planning stages.
No resident of San Antonio is more than eight to 10 minutes away from Baptist’s emergency services. This allows for enhanced care by providing patients direct integration with Baptist’s large network of hospitals and specialists.
While some health systems in the U.S. have struggled in recent years, Baptist’s partnership with Emerus has flourished. The nationally regarded Baptist brand has grown its geographic footprint in San Antonio by more than 100 square miles since 2011.
The overwhelming success of these neighborhood hospitals led to the opening in 2016 of South San Antonio’s first new hospital in more than 30 years. Baptist Neighborhood Hospitals are already serving patients in the communities of Hausman, Overlook, Westover Hills, Kelly, Schertz, Thousand Oaks, Zarzamora and Shavano Park.
Neighborhood hospitals, small-format facilities pioneered by Emerus, offer similar service lines as traditional hospitals, but with a smaller footprint. They offer patients speed, convenience, ease of access and value-based, high-quality comprehensive care.
To date, more than one million patients have gone through the doors of these neighborhood hospitals. Current patient volume represents 34 percent of the Emergency Department volume of the entire Baptist Health System.
Vic Schmerbeck, CEO of Emerus, credits the Baptist Health System leadership and its teams for the success of the healthcare model, which Emerus created and launched 17 years ago in 2006.
“We serve as a support mechanism for the success of this incredibly innovative brand of Baptist,” Schmerbeck says. They bought in to our care model and fully committed to community-based and value-based care. They have been great partners and share in our vision of providing the right care at the right time – at the right place and at the right cost.”
“Baptist Neighborhood Hospitals often offer the closest access to care when every minute counts in an emergency,” says Matt Stone, Baptist Health System Group CEO. “Whether emergency services or inpatient care is needed, our Baptist Neighborhood Hospitals deliver the same high-quality, compassionate care that our patients trust at our acute care hospitals.”
Regarding the dedicated teams who staff the city’s neighborhood hospitals, Emerus Chief Operating Officer Vanessa Smith says, “We’re not just putting buildings into neighborhoods. We’re executing on a care model that provides empathy and compassion. That requires a special kind of healthcare worker. Just look at the incredible job the Baptist teams did during the pandemic. When the world was at its worst, they were at their best.”
The quality of care has not gone unnoticed. During the partnership, Baptist Neighborhood Hospitals have received Press Ganey recognition – a prestigious award honoring healthcare facilities that have reached the 95th percentile for patient experience, engagement or clinical quality performance. Baptist Neighborhood Hospital-Shavano Park was the most recent recipient, having been named a Press Ganey Guardian of Excellence Award® winner in 2021.
Baptist Neighborhood Hospitals are committed to improving the patient experience. A recent patient at Baptist Neighborhood Hospital-Schertz praised the medical team, after she was treated for coughing, congestion and body aches. “Within less than an hour after arriving home, I felt 99.9% better! I can’t thank the doctor, nurse and staff of this awesome medical team enough for bringing relief so quickly to me!”
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