Orlando’s Growth and Medical Needs
According to the Orlando Economic Partnership, Orlando has seen an increased population growth of almost 22% over the past decade. In fact, in 2019, Orlando grew by 2.4 percent to reach a population of just above 2.5 million people. That’s four times the growth rate of the United States, and the second fastest growth rate of the 30 largest cities in America. With a massive increase in population over the past decade, Orlando is experiencing some growing pains. With new people moving to the area it needs more homes, more schools, more everything. Enter the hospital system market share wars.
Big Business for the area’s health systems
The opportunity for growth hasn’t gone unnoticed for the area’s big players. Those include Orlando Health and AdventHealth (formerly Florida Hospital). New campus’ and increased mergers and acquisitions have lead to massive profits for both companies.
According to Orlando Health’s own financial documents released back in Feb 2021, it reported over a billion dollars in revenue in Q4 2020. It’s Q1 revenue was just over $1.08B with a net income profit of over $300M, a 48% increase year over year. OH’s growth has been spurred on by new locations and massive returns on it’s investment income.
AdventHealth isn’t letting its competition run away with the market share. This 46 hospital system posted $3.7B in revenue for Q2 of 2021. It’s also spent heavily over the past 2 years. Acquiring multiple smaller competitors strapped with increase regulation and overhead.
The Land Grab
The land grab isn’t just for physical land to build new facilities, although there’s a lot of that too. The talent “land grab” is at an all time high. According to their own websites, Orlando Health currently has over 1600 open positions system wide. Advent Health (which footprint across Florida is much farther reaching) has just under 6000 open positions. Anecdotally my “day job” as a real estate broker has seen this first hand. My company and I never been so busy helping physicians and support staff relocate to the area. Many, if not all, of these health care systems are busy attracting talent from all over the country.
Other areas of note: Medical City / Lake Nona
Outside of the two biggest healthcare companies, we can’t neglect to talk about Lake Nona. Dubbed “medical city”, Lake Nona is a hub for medical jobs and care. Starting with Nemours Children’s Hospital (I’ve taken each of my kids here and it’s amazing), the Veterans Administration Hospital, and the UF Research and Academic Center, we’ve seen medical jobs explode in the area. The recent addition of the new UCF Lake Nona Medical Center (teaching hospital) and the future growth plans of both UF and UCF in the area, this area isn’t slowing down.
To the future (and concerns)
The investment into our local healthcare system should allow for better access to care for all Central Floridians. In theory, newer facilities, that are better staffed, with state of the art equipment, should offer shorter wait times and easier access to care. The downside to much of this growth is the elimination of the private town family doctor. Many of the small practices have been bought up by larger organizations, leaving you to call a larger hospital system to get even the smallest of issues cared for. The effects of this remains to be seen.
What do you think of the medical care in Orlando? Have you had any good or bad experiences? Share with us below!
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