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Shelby Baptist Medical Center held a grand opening for its new cardiovascular unit on Tuesday, Jan. 9. at 1 p.m. (Reporter photos/Alec Etheredge)

By NOAH WORTHAM | Staff Writer

ALABASTER – The second floor of Shelby Baptist Medical Center was crowded as people gathered to celebrate the grand opening of its new cardiovascular unit.

This new unit marks a $4.5 million investment into the community as Shelby Baptist hopes to provide a state-of-the-art space for patients to recover after undergoing cardiovascular procedures.

“We’ve always provided cardiac related care over many years,” said Holly Dean, CEO of Shelby Baptist Medical Center. “For us, this allows us to do it in one single unit, to be able to provide both intensive care services as well as the step-down level care as well.”

On Tuesday, Jan. 10 at 1 p.m., a ribbon cutting was held by The Shelby County Chamber to commemorate the completion of the unit.

“It’s a very proud moment for our organization,” Dean said at the ribbon cutting. “This signifies our growth. I’m super excited about the next steps and really where cardiac care is going to go for us in this community.”

Completion of the unit took more than a year of planning.

The cardiovascular unit is a 14-bed unit where there will be six brand new cardiac ICU’s and eight step-down beds.

“It’s going to allow us to provide care in a single unit for these patients,” Dean said. “I’m excited about the care teams, what they’re going to step into when we start seeing patients in roughly a week.”

The project was a collaboration between Shelby Baptist, Poole & Company Architects and Tennant Healthcare.

Dean expressed her gratitude for those that helped bring the project into fruition.

“All in all, thank you guys,” Dean said. “It’s a lot of hard work. $4.5 million of investment in this organization and this community. It wouldn’t be possible without the support of our providers, who we have here today, our staff, our physicians and our leaders and inevitably, the community we serve.”

Cardiologist Clifton Vance shared his thoughts on the completion of the unit.

“This is something that, like Holly said, we’ve been working on for quite some time and it’s for the patients,” Vance said. “This unit was very nice when it was built, probably 50 years ago, but it had grown long in the tooth and needed to be changed out and Tennant (Healthcare) did a good job of stepping up to the plate and helping them make it a reality. And, so now we’re going to have a state-of-the-art area for our patients to recover in when they get their state-of-the-art procedures.”

More information on the Shelby Baptist Medical Center can be found at Shelbybaptistmedicalcenter.com.

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