Tyrone Hospital supports more than 139 jobs in Blair County and pumps almost $5 million into Blair County and contiguous areas via salaries paid to those employees.
The data is from a report showing that the state’s hospitals annually contribute more than $33.9 billion to the state’s economy.
“While Tyrone Hospital is recognized for providing high quality hospital care, the county’s economy also benefits from the economic activity generated by our facility,” said Thomas Bartlett, chief executive officer.
Mr. Bartlett noted that hospital state budget cuts do not take into account the secondary benefits that will be lost if the cuts are not restored.
“The mission of our hospital is to provide patients with the best possible health care,” said Mr. Bartlett.
“But in addition to the direct impact on hospitals and patient access to care, the hospital state budget cuts will reach deep into our community, which depends on the services we provide and the economic benefits associated with the hospital.”
“Blair County hospitals provide jobs, purchase local goods and services, contribute to the tax base, and are an integral part of the economic activity in the communities they call home,” said Carolyn F. Scanlan, president and CEO of The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP). “Our patients and the communities we serve cannot bear the burden of state budget cuts that short-change the hospitals they depend on 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
The Hospital Sector’s Contribution to the Pennsylvania State Economy, released by HAP, provides aggregate statewide numbers that supplement county-and hospital-specific data being released by hospitals this week.
The report was researched and written by the Penn State Cooperative Extension and the Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health on HAP’s behalf.
Using data from the Department of Labor and Industry and an economic impact software program known as IMPLAN, the researchers found that:
•Hospitals provide $17.5 billion in ‘secondary” or “ripple” effects on the economy. Secondary effects include hospital purchases of food and other local services and supplies;
•The direct employment effect of the hospital sector is 259,449 jobs;
•Secondary effects of hospital activity translate into an additional
179,455 jobs; and
•Using “multipliers” to measure secondary effects, the researchers found that for every job in the hospital industry, an additional 0.69 jobs are supported in the state economy; for every dollar of hospital industry income, an additional 61 cents of wages and benefits are generated in other Pennsylvania industries.
The report also outlines the impact of Pennsylvania’s hospitals on economic growth, and it cites a study showing that growth in biotechnology clusters is driven by the formation of innovation systems – of which proximity to research hospitals is a critical component.
This segment of the hospital sector offers great potential for growth, as the state’s ten leading research hospitals are annually awarded more than $1 billion in National Institutes of Health funding.
The statewide economic impact report is available online at http://www.haponline.org/downloads/The_Hospital_Sectors_Contribution_to_the Pennsylvania_State_Economy.pdf
Scanlan said that hospitals need the state to restore $89 million in state funds (for medical education, outpatient disproportionate share, and community access funds) which would be matched by $101 million in federal funds, and $48 million in state funds should be restored for drug and alcohol services.
