Over the past 15 months, the Grady Health Foundation has had a quiet $110 million “Power of Grady” campaign for a host of projects to meet critical healthcare needs in the community.
Today, at the first “State of Grady” event at the Commerce Club, foundation leaders are announcing they are $4 million above the goal, and they are still welcoming more donations.
The projects include the renovation and expansion of Grady’s Crestview Health and Rehabilitation Center, the expansion and optimization of its operating rooms, the expansion and renovation of its burn center and the expansion of four neighborhood-based primary care centers — two in Fulton County and two in DeKalb County.
“We do not take for granted the generosity of the donors who have contributed to this campaign or the thousands of donors who choose to support Grady every year,” Joselyn Baker, president of the Grady Health Foundation, said in an exclusive interview Tuesday. “We will be the best possible stewards of these investments.”
Grady designed its campaign after the Wellstar Health System closed its two urban hospitals in 2022 — the Atlanta Medical Center in the Old Fourth Ward community and the Atlanta Medical Center South in East Point.
“Grady and other local hospitals felt the impact of those closures,” Baker said. “We had a large increase in our Trauma Center. The long-term ability to manage Grady’s growing patient volumes was exacerbated by the closing of the two hospitals.”
The campaign has had three prongs: Equitable care. Critical care. Continuing care.
The largest portion of the campaign was “continuing care” for the $45 million expansion and renovation of Crestview.
According to the acceptable standards when it was constructed in 1959, Crestview had four patients to a room sharing one bathroom.
“We will bring the facility up to modern-day standards with regards to patient care,” Baker said. “All of the rooms will be semi-private rooms.”
The facility will be expanded by 124 beds, bringing it to a total of 388 beds.
“For many of these patients, they don’t have a home to go to,” Baker said, adding that some are as young as 30. “Crestview serves a critical role for Grady patients who no longer need to be in the hospital but can’t live on their own.”
The “critical care” part of the campaign includes the $28 million to optimize and expand Grady’s operating rooms. Seventeen of Grady’s existing operating rooms will be upgraded, and up to six new operating rooms will be built.
Grady also will spend $16 million to expand and renovate the Walter L. Ingram Burn Center. Up to 14 patient rooms will be added to the burn unit, and two operating rooms will now be part of the burn center, allowing patients to stay in the unit rather than be moved to other parts of the hospital.
Three projects are part of the “equitable care” part of the campaign.
The campaign is funding the construction of four new neighborhood clinics at a cost of $12.7 million. The center at Lee + White in southwest Atlanta is already open. The other three include one at Cascade, one at Candler Road and one at Flat Shoals. They should all be open by the end of 2025.
The clinics will give patients access to primary, preventative and specialty care near where they live or work, preventing the need to go to the main hospital downtown.
“Access to health care is a critical component for the success of our community overall,” Baker said. “We are looking at where additional clinics are needed in the community. We are continually assessing the community’s needs.”
The two other projects that are included in the “equitable care” part of the campaign are $6 million to significantly expand the capacity of the Heart and Vascular Center and $2.3 million to provide Mobile Health Clinics for mammography and blood pressure monitoring and expanded telemedicine and remote offerings.
Shan Cooper, who has chaired the Grady Health Foundation board since January 2023, said she has enjoyed being part of the campaign effort.
“What really feels good is that we are really going to change people’s lives,” Cooper said in a telephone interview. “We are going to be able to increase the capacity at Grady for the people who need us.”
Cooper also gave a special shout-out to the Woodruff Foundation, which was instrumental in the effort to save Grady Hospital in 2008 when it contributed $200 million to the community-wide initiative.
“The Woodruff Foundation team really understands the importance of Grady Hospital in our community,” Cooper said. “They have demonstrated that through their generosity over the years.”
The other major donors to the campaign were the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the Rollins Family Foundation and the James M. Cox Foundation.
“We also received 100 percent support from the Grady Hospital board of directors and the Grady Foundation board of directors,” Baker said proudly.
Grady Hospital is also putting money into helping pay for each of these projects. The hospital also has announced the construction of a free-standing emergency room in South Fulton to help serve that geographic area.
Baker said one important part of the campaign is that it will help stabilize and sustain Grady financially.
“These projects address an immediate need of what our patients need today, but they also address Grady’s long-term financial sustainability,” Baker said.
Grady has come a long way since 2007, when there was a real concern the hospital could go bankrupt.
“Grady Hospital has met its budget every year since 2012,” Baker said. “Grady, like all the health systems, is in need of ongoing capital investment.
I think that Grady should put a neighborhood clinic on Cleveland Ave. where WellStar hospital was .