AdventHealth presents local impact figures to Palm Coast council; councilors question maternity and pediatric coverage

AdventHealth executives on not specified briefed the Palm Coast City Council about the health system’s local operations, patient volumes and community partnerships and answered council questions about future service lines.

Denise (no last name given in the packet), identified herself as the market CEO for Palm Coast, Flagler and St. John’s markets, said AdventHealth is among the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems and described local activity: the system’s Palm Coast hospitals treated more than 63,300 emergency patients and nearly 13,500 inpatients countywide last year, she said; the Palm Coast Parkway hospital marked its first-year anniversary and treated about 29,000 patients in its first year. "AdventHealth believes in providing care close to home," Denise said, and she told the council about the system’s workforce and local hiring: roughly 1,800 team members and 900 physicians operate in the region and, she said, roughly 73% of team members live in Flagler County.

Wally De Aquino, identified in the presentation as CEO of AdventHealth Palm Coast Parkway Hospital, described community partnerships the system operates with school districts and youth programs, including free sports physicals and cardiac screenings for students. "We focus on career development, mental health, and sports," Wally said, and described free sports physicals and cardiac screenings the system provided to hundreds of students last year.

Council members and attendees asked AdventHealth officials about obstetrics and pediatric services. The council heard from an attendee who said she had a child nine months earlier and described difficulty finding local OB‑GYN and pediatric care; a council member pressed AdventHealth about whether the system plans to add maternity services locally. Denise responded that AdventHealth monitors demographics and that, at present, the fastest‑growing local age group is people 65 and older; she said AdventHealth would only add obstetrics services if it could retain the physicians and staff needed to sustain specialized care, and that residents currently receive OB and higher‑level neonatal care at AdventHealth’s Daytona Beach hospital, which has a Level II NICU.

AdventHealth representatives declined to announce any immediate plans to open a local OB unit but welcomed further conversations with the council and community groups; they also invited council members to tour AdventHealth facilities. The presentation included an offer to work with the city and local volunteer organizations to better coordinate outreach for maternity and postpartum services.

No formal council action was taken during the presentation.