BUSINESS IS GOOD
As retirees' population grows, medical industry eyes growth
By JIMMY GALVAN

When the Texas Forest Country was heralded a couple of months ago, the key recruiting figure targeted was retirees.

With an economic plan set at an older generation, the medical field is also seeing a booming increase in service in East Texas and Jasper County.

"Jasper is very fortunate to have significant numbers of very good physicians," said Christus Jasper Memorial Chief Financial Officer Chuck Breidenthal. "But when you get to the issue of specialists, it's really right now an issue of how many specialists can you draw to the area to come in and hold office hours one or two days a week.

"There is not really a big enough population in this rural area to have the patient base for a specialist," Breidenthal said.

Tara Watson, marketing director for Woodland Heights Hospital in Lufkin, said the demographics in the area make for a natural growth in the medical field in East Texas.

"East Texas and Jasper are drawing a lot of retirees and that is causing us to increase h e a l t h c a r e r e s o u r c e s , " Watson said. "To make sure that we can deliver healthcare in the proper way will depend on federal healthcare policies."

Tom McClurg, executive director for the Jasper E c o n o m i c D e v e l o p m e n t Corporation, said medical facility growth would continue in Jasper and East Texas as more retirees relocate in this region.

"Medical growth is not only viable but it is necessary for both industry and retirement communities," McClurg said. "Having a good healthcare system is an attractive for both retirement programs as well as industrial programs.

"Without the medical facilities, the community would be at a great disadvantage," McClurg said.

McClurg pointed out that the demographics bear out the fact that it is becoming a retirement community already.

"The percentage of people over 65 for our area is 17 percent and statewide it is only nine percent," M c C l u rg said. "And some of those people are the m o s t dependent on medical services. Breidenthal said the area is fortunate to have specialists in u r o l o g y, orthopedics and surgical physicians in Jasper full time.

"When you try to expand that base, it becomes a tougher question," Breidenthal said.

Christus Jasper Memorial will be looking to expand not only existing services but also new services to the community.

New services projected for the area include a sleep lab.

"By doing some projections and looking at referrals that were made by physicians, we felt it would be something that would benefit the community," said Mark Durand, marketing director for Christus Jasper Memorial.

Durand said when Christus comes into a community, they do not look to form any competition for existing services being offered.

"You won't see us in any home health agencies, hospices or nursing homes," Durand said. "Those services are already provided here and those needs are already supplied to the community."

Durand pointed to the Christus outpatient center. They provide specialists in cardiology and oncology who come and offer office areas in Jasper during the week.

Last year, Woodland Heights stepped up their coverage in the Jasper area with the opening of a clinic on Gibson and a full-time physician to see patients plus visiting specialists.

"We had a lot of patients that were driving to Lufkin to see our doctors so we decided to open up the clinic and give them a better option," Watson said. "We wanted to bring medicine to the people of Jasper.

"Jasper is a highly populated East Texas area and I think we saw a lot of people who were driving from Jasper to Lufkin for their healthcare needs and we wanted to bring medicine closer to the people of Jasper," Watson said.

"Our top priority is quality care," said Lance Jones, chief executive officer of Woodland Heights Medical Center. "The recognition by HealthGrades, an objective, independent source, validates the efforts our physicians, nurses and staff deliver to the people of East Texas every day."

Durand said a bigger issue for hospitals is staffing and finding adequate replacements for retiring personnel.

"You read that there are more and more of the baby boomers that are getting closer to the retirement age," Durand said. "Once they retire, are we going to have nurses to fill those spots?"

He said there are plenty of students who apply for the nursing classes at Lamar University but a lack of instructors is hurting the program.

He mentioned that the hospital works closely with Angelina College's Jasper nursing program in that students often rotate through the hospital.

"Hopefully, through the student's rotations we can use their time as a recruitment mechanism to get them back," Durand said.

He said sometimes it's even harder to recruit family practice doctors to relocate their offices here as well.

"The doc gets here and says he likes it and his wife gets here and says where's the mall?" Durand said. "Fortunately, we have our lakes and our golf course and quiet living to draw some good physicians."

Breidenthal said the future for medical growth in Jasper County lies with innovations on the technology side of the issue.

"Christus, as a health care system, has realized that technology is the driving force in healthcare," Breidenthal said. "The advances in technology can greatly increase the diseases that we can treat and cure."

Breidenthal said, though, there is a downside to the new technology as well.

"Another way that technology drives healthcare is the costs of this new technology," Breidenthal said. "It is probably the greatest factor in the increase costs of healthcare.

"All these new machines and equipment and drugs that are being developed come at a cost, and they increase all the time," Breidenthal said. "It's a positive but it's also a negative."

He said medical technology in the next 10-15 years would be "amazing to see."

"Every year, healthcare becomes a little less invasive," Breidenthal said.

Durand said Christus Jasper Memorial remains a gateway to Lufkin and Beaumont as far as medical care is concerned.

"We are an elderly population," Durand said. "We are just as important to them as they are to us."

"Healthcare is a challenging and complex environment," Jones said. "At the end of the day it's about taking care of people."