By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

BIRMINGHAM – Alabaster’s Shelby Baptist Medical Center is now officially part of a joint company operating under the leadership of Baptist Health System and Tenet Healthcare after the two companies finalized their mergers on Oct. 2.

The joint venture includes all Baptist Health System hospitals, including Shelby Baptist, Tenet’s Brookwood Medical Center and each organization’s related businesses. Under the joint venture arrangement, Tenet, which previously was the parent company of Brookwood, will be the majority partner and will manage the network’s operations.

The new system includes more than 1,700 licensed beds, nine outpatient centers, 68 physician clinics delivering primary and specialty care, more than 7,000 employees and approximately 1,500 affiliated physicians.

Baptist Health System previously was a non-profit organization, but the new joint company will be a for-profit entity. Tenet has not announced the name of the new company.

During an Oct. 1 address to the Alabaster-Pelham Rotary Club at Shelby Baptist, hospital President Bob Phillips said the joint company’s board of directors will be composed of representatives from Baptist Health, Brookwood and Tenet, and said the merger will give the hospital access to financial resources to make improvements in the future.

“It will give us access to capital, and we will be able to invest in things moving forward,” Phillips said. “We think the newly formed organization will be able to fully leverage the resources of both companies to serve the needs of patients. It will also give us a good geographic footprint to make it more accessible and convenient for patients.”

Former Baptist Health System CEO Keith Parrott will serve as the CEO of the joint company.

“With this new network, we will continue the longtime mission of both Brookwood Medical Center and the Baptist Health System to provide high-quality care to residents across central Alabama, while also enhancing access to a wide range of healthcare resources for the communities we serve,” Parrott wrote in a statement. “This new partnership will strengthen our collective efforts throughout the region while also preserving and supporting the Baptist tradition and our faith-based approach to quality health care.”