In a city of approximately 40,000 residents, Meridian has two major healthcare systems, Anderson Regional Health System and Rush Health Systems, each operating various physician-affiliated clinics and employing a sizable portion of the population.

This critical access to healthcare expands to an estimated 90-mile radius and serves more than 300,000 people in East Mississippi and West Alabama.

“For a city the size of Meridian to have the healthcare environment that they have today – with the number of doctors here the number of clinics that are around – that improves patient access,” Dale Armour, the executive vice president and COO of Rush, said.

“That’s preventing people from having to travel and they can get their care provided closer to home and that’s very important,” John G. Anderson, the president and CEO of Anderson, said. “You don’t have to have the inconvenience of travel: of staying overnight somewhere, of being away from family and not being comfortable in your own home.”

“The last number I saw was that there are over 300,000 people within an easy drive to Meridian. To support that there is room for two facilities,” Armour said. “If you wanted to isolate it down to solely Meridian and only look at the numbers for Meridian, probably not… But we tend not to think about our market as Meridian. It is Meridian but it is much bigger than Meridian.”

“I think that the populations are served well by both facilities and the physicians,” Anderson said. “The providers that you use here, you know. You see them at worship. You see them in the grocery store. You see them at events in the community – your kids may even go to school together. There’s a value to that that you don’t get if you have to go to another location or another large city.”

Anderson focuses the bulk of its workforce in Meridian, with two satellite clinics in Enterprise and Philadelphia. Anderson has a few different specialties, namely their cancer center, cardiovascular surgery and the area’s only in-patient pediatric unit.

Anderson has two campuses, approximately 10 city blocks in Meridian, that offer a variety of services to patients, ranging from sleep disorder care to the breast center to a rehabilitation center.

Rush, on the other hand, has expanded its network across East Mississippi and West Alabama by acquiring hospitals and building new ones, in DeKalb and Butler. Specialists from Rush rotate at these hospitals, bringing their experience to rural locations.

The Rush Foundation Hospital and Special Hospital of Meridian (long-term acute care and they focus on wound care) serve as a sort of center for the various other hospitals Rush has either built or acquired. These hospitals included: the Laird Hospital, in Union; the H.C. Watkins Memorial Hospital, in Quitman; the Scott Regional Hospital, in Morton; the John C. Stennis Memorial Hospital, in DeKalb; and the Choctaw General Hospital, in Butler, Ala.

Rush also has at least 30 clinics in Meridian, Collinsville, Decatur, DeKalb, Forest, Lake, Marion, Morton, Newton, Philadelphia, Preston, Quitman and Union, all in Mississippi, and Butler, Gilbertown and Livingston all in Alabama.

“What we try to do is we want to be a rural healthcare provider. We want to provide access to patients that are in rural markets,” Armour said, noting the five critical access hospitals Rush operated. “People don’t have to drive from 60 miles away to get care here.”

Additionally, the healthcare systems serve as an economic driver for the region.

“I’ve served on a lot of economic boards and the first question they ask when they’re coming here or potentially want to locate here is healthcare. They want access to healthcare” Armour said. “(Additionally) all these people that work (at hospitals) require some sort of higher level training and the result of that is that the payroll is a lot higher. The type of jobs that are being created in the healthcare industry are higher paying jobs.”

“The healthcare industry has a tremendous footprint in this area as an employment base, which translates into a tax base which translates into spending in your community. We all go to the same grocery stores. We go to the restaurants. We go to shopping districts. We spend our money locally. And that in turn contributes to that tax base which is revenue for that community,” Anderson said.

This helps to attract potential businesses and provides an economic stimulus, but problems remain. Armour said Rush wanted to continually improve access to care, especially in rural communities.

“If you’re a working mother or a working dad you’re not real flexible. You’ve got to go to work at 7 in the morning you can’t get off until 3 and we close at 5. That’s your access to care. So what happens is you default to the ER because it’s easy. It’s the only thing that’s open at 9 o’clock at night,” Armour said, noting that Rush operated an urgent care center from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and looked to expand those hours to other clinics.

Anderson discussed the continuing stress on continued care coordination: ensuring patients attend follow-up appointments, encouraging patients to take their medication and placing patients in the appropriate care setting. One goal of both systems: diverting patients from the emergency department by encouraging them to make wellness visits with a primary care phsyician.

A wellness visit, a scheduled meeting between a patient and a primary care doctor, simply checks the patient’s health before any serious problems develop. These appointments can identify pre-diabetics, high blood pressure and other potential problems before they develop into episodes that force the patient to seek costly care at the emergency department.

“It’s the most expensive place to receive care. It has its role – it’s an exceptionally important role – but that patient that presents at the emergency department needs to be there because they are in an emergent situation.” Anderson said. “And that’s a large focus for us is getting that patient in the right care setting – in the most affordable care setting – and being able to manage whatever chronic disease issues they might have.”

This not only takes the pressure off of somewhat overwhelmed emergency departments but lowers the cost for the patient. A visit to a primary care doctor costs less than an emergency room. This warning allows the patient to make lifestyle changes before they experience an emergency.

Hospitals have a role in continuing this care and educating patients about changing their unhealthy habits.

Anderson proposed a hypothetical situation that would follow a patient suffering a heart attack, emphysema or after a hip/ knee replacement, describing how hospitals try to teach patients to be healthier.

“You work with trained nursing professionals who exercise with you and teach you lifestyle changes and get you back on a road to recovery and… then you move into a fitness model a prescribed fitness model what happens with that is it keeps you exercising, right? And so exercise is good for everybody. And so it reduces your chance of reinjuring yourself or becoming sick again,” Anderson said.

“Meridian is lucky,” Armour, not a native of Meridian, said. “Meridian is lucky to have the quality of healthcare that we have in Meridian. There’s a lot of towns our size that struggle to have even basic services.”

Years ago, the area’s then seven hospitals consolidated, such as when the Riley Hospital became the Anderson South Campus, or changed their mission, such as the evolution of St. Joseph’s Hospital into Alliance Health Center, and now two major health systems remain today.

“Meridian has a legacy,” Anderson said. “Which in some respects is exactly what Meridian is – a legacy medical community.”

By the numbers:

Anderson:

Number employed: 1,900

Emergency Department visits last year: 36,202

Number of in-patients: 10,554

Number of out-patients: 159,115

Number of licensed beds: 400

Payroll: $80 million

Rush:

Number employed: 2,800

Emergency Department visits last year: 54,147

Number of in-patients: 15,316

Number of out-patients: 854,416

Number of licensed beds: 389 (total of all eight hospitals)

Payroll: $157.2 million