Video: Calhoun City Baptist Memorial Hospital

by Victoria Bailey

CALHOUN CITY, Miss.(WCBI)—Receiving quality Health care tops the list of priorities for many people. But for some accessing it can be a challenge, especially if you live in rural areas.

A new chapter in bringing health care to Calhoun County is underway with Baptist health System taking over the Calhoun County Hospital and its related clinics and nursing home.

Calhoun health service officials welcomed Baptist Memorial Hospital Friday morning in a ribbon tying ceremony. Calhoun County Board of supervises Barney Wade says their help couldn’t have come at a better time.

” They wanted to keep it all together our nursing home our hospital our emergency room. You know a lot of emergency rooms are closing. The area that we’re in with our industry and with our huge agg. business that we have, we just needed a facility like this in our area and that’s what makes it so important,”Calhoun County Board of Supervisors Barney Wade said.

Friday’s ceremony showcased the goal for Baptist, which is providing quality health care to the community. Kimberly Webb is the new Family Physician. She says providing consistent care is a huge factor as well.

” We serve a large portion of rural areas too and it’s important for people to have the same family practice Doctor and Continuity of care is what it’s all about,” Webb said.

Webb says the services the hospital is providing will ensure that area residents will receive the care they need.

” Up to date everything you know electronic records. Baptist has brought a lot of good things to the community. You will have access to good medical care ,”Webb said.

Baptist President and CEO Jason Little says Baptist delivering the proper health care to the area requires state of the art technology.

We’ve been working on beginning on October first installing the country’s best electronic medical record. We call it baptist One care. And our systems have invested $350,000,000 so that folks can manage their care via their smart phone or their computer and see their medical records print off and communicate with their physician. And so now if you walk through Calhoun Hospital here you will see new computers and all the new technology that we’ve installed so that we can begin day one,”  Little said.

The new lease is for 30 years and requires Baptist to make 30 million dollars in capital improvements over the life of the agreement. Baptist also has options that could stretch the management deal to 50 years.