Although it’s been in the works for several years, there’s still a lot of confusion, even fear, about what the Baton Rouge Health District is and what it will do. Is it supposed to make us healthier? Bring in medical tourists? Siphon resources that might otherwise go to more important efforts, like attracting a hospital to north Baton Rouge?
For the cover story of its Trends in Health Care issue, Business Report sat down Suzy Sonnier just weeks into her new job as the district’s executive director and asked her whether the district effort is about health care or economic development.
“That sounds like a trick question,” she says, laughing.
It is sort of a trick question, because the collective answer given by district leaders and supporters is “both.”
There’s nothing in the district master plan about the emergency care gap in the northern part of the parish, which disappoints many advocates for north Baton Rouge—some of whom opposed formation of the Baton Rouge Health District and are now calling for a similar district specifically for the northern part of the city. But district leaders say it could alleviate some of the entire region’s most pressing and expensive health care issues.
And the health care business already is booming along the Bluebonnet Boulevard and Essen Lane corridors, judging by all the new construction. But by working together, the district’s big providers hope to leverage their resources to deliver a bigger economic impact.
Various health districts across the country have differing goals. Generally speaking, health districts are communities within a city where health care providers work together to improve care, reduce costs, increase research, and improve quality of life for people who live and work in the district.
Organizing the providers on Bluebonnet and Essen into a health district is called for by FuturEBR, the master plan approved unanimously by the Metro Council in 2011. The Baton Rouge Area Foundation was asked by the FuturEBR implementation team to kick off the health district project. The foundation spent $700,000 hiring consultants to develop a master plan, now available at brhealthdistrict.org. BRAF Executive Vice President John Spain says that while FuturEBR primarily is concerned with improving transportation in the Essen/Bluebonnet health care corridor, the foundation broadened the focus.
“We looked at walking paths, creating new green spaces, connecting spaces,” Spain says. “But we also wanted to position all of these fantastic parts in a way that was greater than the individual parts.”
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