Fourteen hospitals. More than 30 medical office buildings and clinics. 87,000 employees. More than $120 million in taxes paid annually to the City of San Antonio and Bexar County.
The impact of the South Texas Medical Center on San Antonio, its residents and the region is hard to overstate — but with those statistics and others, Jim Reed tried to capture it for listeners of Robert Rivard’s latest bigcitysmalltown episode.
For a quarter century, Reed helmed the San Antonio Medical Foundation, which formed in 1947 to bring a medical school to town. Since then, it’s overseen the orderly development of what is now the epicenter of the city’s $44 billion health care and biosciences sector.
“So it’s providing health care, but also providing economic impact to the city,” said Reed, who announced his retirement last year.
“I don’t think most people appreciate that we have a thriving medical school out there producing physicians. We have a dental school that’s nationally ranked and a nursing school all under the umbrella of UT Health San Antonio, as well as [the] University Systems,” said host Robert Rivard, teeing off the conversation, which ranged from the early beginnings of the foundation’s work to attract a medical school to its ongoing expansion.
That includes the expected December opening of UT Health San Antonio’s $430 million Multispecialty and Research Hospital the culmination of the vision of Dr. William Henrich, president of UT Health San Antonio who died in March after complications from a second stem cell transplant.
Henrich was also the force behind the UT School of Public Health San Antonio, which is expected to open this fall.
“Bill was a real visionary, a real leader, and maybe more important than that, a real collaborator,” Reed said on the podcast. “He worked with [Southwest Research Institute] and Texas Biomed and Biobridge Global and the military, and brought those groups together as entities that do joint research and work together like they have never worked before.”
Reed’s 25 years with the Medical Foundation has been similarly impactful, though Rivard noted that Reed has never been one to seek the spotlight.
He asked Reed what he left on the drawing board as he transitioned the foundation presidency to Richard Perez, the former Greater Chamber of Commerce president who served on city council from 2003 to 2007.
Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans’ Hospital was built in the 1970s, Reed said, yet “we are the largest VA, patient-wise, in the United States now.”
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, he said, is planning “a 1.8 million square foot replacement” for the hospital. “So it’s a huge, huge addition that will occur in San Antonio on Foundation property.”
Listen to episode 58 of bigcitysmalltown to learn more about the timeline on that project, the explosion of residential in the Medical Center area and the amenities that’s bringing, as well as how Reed’s career at Southwestern Bell Telephone brought him to San Antonio.
