In recognition of the expanded roles hospitals and health systems are playing in today’s health care, the Houston County Health Care Authority has selected the name Southeast Health to represent the health system. The new name allows the health system to better express its own mission, vision, capabilities and commitment to the communities it serves.

“Southeast Health more accurately reflects the evolution of Southeast Alabama Medical Center (SAMC) during the last 60 years from a community hospital to a comprehensive health system and regional referral center responsible for the health and wellness of more than 460,000 people throughout the multi-state area we serve,” says Claudia Hall, the health system’s vice president of Marketing and Strategic Planning.

“Under the leadership of the Houston County Health Care Authority, SAMC has grown at a rapid pace during the past 10 years,” says Hall. “We continually add capabilities and services that provide our community with quality healthcare across all major specialties, while doing more than ever to create a top healthcare facility and healthcare educational system in our part of the world.”

SAMC was the first free standing hospital in the country to build a medical school not associated with a university. With a focus on addressing the primary care shortage in our region and across the nation, the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine has since graduated 275 students who are now in residency training.

“The work we are doing is having a major impact on the health and wellness of this entire region,” says, Hall. “We continue to expand our footprint, which includes adding complex clinical programs that make SAMC, now Southeast Health a regional destination for care.”

Examples of SAMC’s growth and innovation in recent years include:

• Creation of a Stroke Care Network that coordinates the efforts of six hospitals throughout the region to deliver care for stroke patients via telemedicine.
• Establishing a neuro-endovascular stroke lab, which is the only interventional stroke program in the region and one of a few in the state.
• Developing the region’s first Level II Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) which cares for critically ill infants and premature babies.
• Providing the region’s only Level II Trauma Center with specialized treatment rooms for major trauma and resuscitation, victims of sexual assault and other emergent needs.
• Developing the region’s largest comprehensive heart and vascular program, which now includes the only structural heart program from Panama City, Florida to Birmingham, Alabama.
• Founding the Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine, which currently has an enrollment of 630 medical students from around the country.
• Creating the Graduate Medical Education Programs, which provides residency training to new doctors. The first 13 internal medicine residents began training in July of 2018 and the program will grow to 39 residents over a 3-year period.
• Growth of Southeast Alabama Medical Group, the employed provider arm of SAMC. It has become the region’s largest multispecialty group with 185 physicians and advanced practice providers in 14 locations, representing 19 medical specialties.
• Developing Statera Health, a Clinically Integrated Network (CIN), focused on population health management.
• Developing the SAMC Foundation, Inc. a not-for-profit public charity that focuses on advancing healthcare through philanthropy.

“We’re proud of where we’ve been, where we are going and the role we’ve played in the lives of thousands who have needed outstanding healthcare throughout the years. Beginning October 1, SAMC and many of the other entities within the system will transition to Southeast Health.”