Economic Development Quarterly Breakfast-St. David’s Georgetown Hospital

On December 8, Mark Thomas, Director of Economic Development for the City of Georgetown, hosted the quarterly Economic Development Breakfast. The purpose of the breakfast series is to inform citizens about current developments in the Georgetown economy, and to keep the lines of communication open between citizens and City staff. This month’s breakfast was held at St. David’s Georgetown Hospital.

If you would like to be invited to future Economic Development breakfasts, please contact Tina Dunbar at tina.dunbar@georgetown.org.

Primary Job Growth

“The next area of primary job growth in Georgetown is along the I-35 corridor from Leander Road to Westinghouse (CR 111),” Thomas said. “That’s where recent deals have gone, and where deals will continue to go.”

Residents who are familiar with this area may be surprised to see the improvements of the past few years. He added that Georgetown’s 4A Board, 4B Board, Economic Development Advisory Board, City Council, and City staff met recently to address some of the major deficiencies in that area, such as the need for a $2.5 million wastewater line. The City must get ahead of the curve to attract more primary employers to Georgetown, Thomas said.

In general, Georgetown was not hit hard by the recession, and Thomas expects that we will recover sooner than other parts of the country. In fact, there are significant signs that the economy in Georgetown is picking up.

“We’re starting to see proposals again from real manufacturers that have real money.”

Texas Life-Sciences Collaboration Center

The Texas Life-Sciences Collaboration Center (TLCC) now has eight member companies, and word of mouth has brought a lot of attention from the biotech industry. TLCC is a non-profit organization launched in 2007 by the City of Georgetown, the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce, and Southwestern University, to help biotech and life-sciences companies with commercially viable products through the post-incubator stage of growth. The Center is now acting as a magnet, attracting interest from young companies that could benefit from the shared wet lab and other facilities, as well as from the expertise of other member companies.

The Georgetown 4A Board recently empowered City Economic Development staff to use 10% of what they receive from TLCC – up to $80,000 – to promote the community. Thomas feels one of the pressing needs is for a more robust website so that scientists searching online can fully see the benefits of relocating to TLCC and Georgetown.

Patient Care at St. David’s Georgetown Hospital

St. David’s Georgetown Hospital is a great asset to the community, Thomas said as he introduced Hugh Brown, Chief Executive Officer of the hospital. Additional, high quality medical services bring people to town and give local employers a powerful recruiting tool.

Some of the hospital services that are most appealing to potential residents include:

• Emergency Specialists and Level IV Trauma Certification. The emergency department at St. David’s Georgetown Hospital is staffed 24/7 with physicians specially trained in emergency medicine and the hospital was recently reaccredited as a Level IV Trauma Center by the Texas Department of State Health Services. Having this level of clinical expertise conveniently located off of I-35 in Georgetown gives local residents easy access to emergency care whenever they need it.
• Accredited Chest Pain Center. The chest pain center at St. David’s Georgetown Hospital received reaccreditation in the summer of 2010, thanks to their efficient processes when treating patients experiencing chest pain or having heart attacks.
• Stroke Care. St. David’s Georgetown Hospital has implemented evidence-based stroke protocols to guide the medical teams caring for victims of stroke during those first, critical hours after the stroke occurs. Special clot-busting drugs can be administered immediately in the emergency department which can significantly decrease potential damage to the brain.
• Women’s Services. The obstetrics department’s renovation draws families to St. David’s Georgetown Hospital. With large, private rooms on the maternity unit, new mothers can recover in peace and comfort while bonding with their babies. Advanced fetal monitoring gives parents assurance that their baby is being watched at all times. St. David’s Georgetown Hospital also now offers digital mammography.
• State-of-the-Art Operating Rooms. Among the largest and best equipped in Central Texas, the operating rooms at St. David’s Georgetown Hospital were remodeled in 2010 to accommodate future developments in medicine.
• Surgical Specialties. One of the specialties in highest demand is knee and hip joint replacement. Dr. Christopher English, an orthopedic surgeon and the Director of the St. David’s Center for Joint Replacement at St. David’s Georgetown Hospital is one of the highest volume, most experienced knee replacement surgeons in the region. Dr. English and his partners at Georgetown Orthopedics provide exceptional expertise and service using state-of-the-art image guided technology.

  St. David’s Georgetown Hospital is also proud to be home to interventional pulmonologists Dr. Dominic de Keratry and Dr. Esther Fields, who provide cutting edge services to patients suffering from breathing disorders. For example, they are two of the first 50 doctors in the United States trained to perform bronchial thermoplasty, a procedure recently approved by the FDA to provide relief to severe asthmatics making St. David’s Georgetown Hospital the only hospital in Texas to offer this new therapy.

Patient satisfaction survey scores at St. David’s Georgetown Hospital remain high, Brown said. In fact, the average registration time for outpatient services at St. David’s Georgetown Hospital is a mere nine minutes and emergency department wait times are consistently the shortest among the St. David’s facilities. In addition, the St. David’s Healthcare system also outperforms some of the nation’s best-ranked hospitals on the quality of care process measures established by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Business of St. David’s Georgetown Hospital

St. David’s Georgetown Hospital is part of St. David’s Healthcare – a partnership whose members are Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), St. David’s Foundation, and Georgetown Health Foundation. The Georgetown Foundation also operates the hospital gift shop, using the proceeds to provide scholarships for local high school students who plan to go into the medical field.

Brown explained that St. David’s Healthcare System is a unique business model, a public-private partnership rather than a tax-exempt organization, as many hospitals are. This means that they pay property taxes and income taxes, providing another benefit to the local economy. Since 1996, St. David’s HealthCare has invested $700 million in their hospitals in central Texas without fundraising and, even more impressively, without borrowing money.

In 2010, the St. David’s Foundation will reinvest $27 million back into the community, 23% of which will be reinvested here in Williamson County. This reinvestment comes in the form of grants to various organizations including the Lone Star Circle of Care and the Texas A & M Health Science Center, as well as the establishment of the St. David’s School of Nursing in Round Rock, a campus of Texas State University. The St. David’s Foundation also operates several dental screening vans, bringing services directly to low-income children.

The St. David’s Georgetown Hospital itself has had over $21 million in capital investments since 2006 which, according to Brown, has allowed the facility and technology to now match the exceptional care that the hospital’s staff provides to every patient, every day.