Northeast Georgia Medical Center (NGMC) in Gainesville has reached an economic milestone.
According to the latest report from the Georgia Hospital Association (GHA), the medical center has now surpassed the $1.75 billion mark in local and state economic impact.
The hospital trade association recently released findings from 2016, the latest year for which figures are available.
The report found NGMC generated $1,751,543,053 in revenue for the local and state economy; provided more than $52 million in uncompensated care; and sustained more than 18,000 full-time jobs throughout the region and state – in addition to the more than 8,000 employees directly employed by Northeast Georgia Health System (NGHS). The more than $52 million in uncompensated care, which includes indigent and charity care and bad debt, did not take into account $6.5 million NGMC provided in community outreach such as free screenings and health education.
The report revealed that NGMC had direct expenditures of more than $761 million in 2016. When combined with an economic multiplier developed by the United States Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, the total economic impact of those expenditures was more than $1.75 billion. According to the report, this output multiplier considers the “ripple” effect of direct hospital expenditures on other sectors of the economy such as medical supplies, durable medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. Economic multipliers are used to model the impact of a change in one industry on the “circular flow” of spending within an economy as a whole.
The report is the first that includes NGMC Braselton for a full year, since the Braselton hospital opened in April 2015.
The GHA report also reflects the addition of NGMC Barrow, although the Barrow hospital was not a part of NGMC at the time of the report. In 2016, Barrow Regional Medical Center (now NGMC Barrow) generated $73,308,387 in revenue for the local and state economies; provided more than $2.7 million in uncompensated care; and sustained nearly 500 full-time jobs throughout the region and state.
The figures in the GHA study only reflect the economic impact of hospital expenditures and do not include the impact of other services, such as physician offices and long term care facilities, provided by Northeast Georgia Health System.
