City-funded health-care study finds residents leaving county for inpatient care; hospital certificate-of-need work proposed

City staff and the Enterprise Health Care Authority presented a multi-phase health-care assessment showing that 57% of Coffee County residents who sought inpatient or acute hospital care in 2023 received it outside the county, a finding consultants described as “eye opening.” Jonathan (city staff) outlined the city’s financial contribution to the study and turned the presentation over to Wes Averett of the Enterprise Health Care Authority, who reviewed the PYA consulting firm’s findings and options for next steps.

The study, prepared by PYA, compared two ways to count hospital capacity and demand: total beds licensed in the county and beds actually staffed for daily use. “When you look at the total number of available beds in Coffee County based off the population of Coffee County, 30 to 34 bed surplus,” Averett said. But when counting staffed beds—the beds actually resourced for daily care—PYA found “a slight deficit of 8 to 12 beds,” a difference Averett said…