gulf shores: Beach cities seek health care system designs

Monday, June 26, 2006
By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter
ORANGE BEACH -- In February, Pensacola's Sacred Heart Health System took the first step toward building a planned outpatient surgery center in southernmost Baldwin County by filing a "letter of intent" with the state board that permits health care facilities.

To aid the request's arduous trek through Alabama's "certificate of need" process, Sacred Heart executives asked the city councils of Orange Beach and Gulf Shores to endorse their proposal, municipal officials said. About the same time, other regional health care providers were being alerted to Sacred Heart's designs and, according to city officials, some expressed their desire to also enter the lucrative market on Baldwin County's beaches.

"There are a lot of people wanting to go with the local person (Sacred Heart) and some people wanting to go with someone else and we just thought it was best to open it up," said Orange Beach Councilwoman Joni Blalock.

To that end, leaders in both cities agreed to jointly issue a request for proposals -- much as a city would if it were looking for an architect or a consulting firm -- from companies interested in building health care systems on Baldwin County's beaches.

At present Orange Beach and Gulf Shores are served by a few doctors' offices, but the nearest hospitals are South Baldwin Regional Medical Center in Foley and four institutions, including Sacred Heart, in Pensacola.

"What we're hoping is someone will come in and do an overview of what the existing health care facilities are in the two cities, tell us what their plans would be for the next three years, the next five years, the next eight," Blalock said. "The ultimate thing that we want is a local hospital and that's what we're working toward."

The Orange Beach City Council passed a resolution last week entering into the two-city agreement and Gulf Shores council members said they expect to do the same at their meeting this evening. From there, the cities will solicit proposals from health care providers throughout the Southeast, narrowing the plans down to three or four. Interviews with the chosen companies will then be conducted before picking one to formally endorse before the state Health Planning and Development Agency's Certificate of Need Review Board, city officials said.

"We're trying to have a say," Orange Beach City Administrator Jeff Moon said. "We realize that to some extent it's beyond our control, but before we jump in and start cheerleading or lobbying for someone we wanted to see who maybe has the most to offer our residents."

The cities had formed a group looking into ways to bolster health care options in the growing resort cities, Moon said, but each will likely have to assemble its own panel consisting of elected officials and local health care experts to review the proposals.

Blalock, who is spearheading the effort for Orange Beach, said that besides being advertised locally, five metro areas will be targeted. Birmingham, Atlanta, Nashville, Tenn., Mobile and Pensacola will all see advertisements soliciting the proposals in local publications, she said.