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Photo by Jon Anderson
Thibaut Van Marcke, president of Baptist Health, speaks at the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Vestavia Country Club on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Thibaut Van Marcke, president of Baptist Health, speaks with an audience member after his speech at the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Vestavia Country Club on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Thibaut Van Marcke, president of Baptist Health, speaks at the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Vestavia Country Club on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Thibaut Van Marcke, president of Baptist Health, was the keynote speaker for the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Vestavia Country Club on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. Shown here, from left, are chamber program chairwoman Jamie Black, Chamber President and CEO Michelle Hawkins, Baptist Health CFO Amy Wheeler, Van Marcke and chamber board Chairwoman Keri Bates.
The Baptist Health organization has been working hard to improve the environment for its employees since being acquired by Florida-based Orlando Health a year ago, the Baptist Health president told the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce Tuesday.
The company has invested about $50 million in facility and equipment improvements and boosted its wage and benefit packages for employees, said Thibaut Van Marcke, who also serves as the senior vice president for Orlando Health over the company’s Alabama region.
Baptist Health’s facilities, which include five hospitals in Homewood, Birmingham, Alabaster, Talladega and Jasper and a stand-alone emergency department in north Shelby County, had been somewhat neglected by the previous owners, Van Marcke said.
The facility improvements have included exterior remodeling and improvements to parking lots, chillers, boilers, roofs, elevators, waiting rooms, public corridors, a new cardiac catheterization lab at one hospital and a new neurointerventional lab, Van Marcke said.
But there also has been a significant investment in upgrading some things people might consider as minor equipment, such as IV poles, stretchers, thermometers and guest chairs, he said. Once Orlando Health took over, employees identified numerous things that were in need of replacement, he said.
The physical transformation of the facilities has had a huge impact on employee morale, who now walk with a little more pep in their step and a feeling that they are being supported, Van Marcke said.
Orlando Health surveyed its new employees when it acquired the Alabama operations regarding things such as leadership and needed improvements and surveyed them again six months later and had marked improvement in employee satisfaction, he said.
“That’s important because these are the people taking care of you when you’re ill,” Van Marcke said.
His experience is that a more engaged and happy workforce has a direct correlation with improved outcomes, quality care and a higher rate of retention, he said.
Orlando Health also had encouraged employees to make connections with the community, and employees seem excited about that, he said. Baptist Health had 450 employees and family members attend the American Heart Association’s Heart Walk at Railroad Park this year, compared to 11 employees the previous year, he said.
The company also is working hard to connect through chambers of commerce and partnerships with other community groups, Van Marcke said.
Orlando Health has five strategic imperatives, including improving efficiency and quality, enhancing patient and employee experiences, partnering with physicians, building a strong community presence and creating a robus analytics foundation.
The focus over the next year will be on improving patient outcomes, access to care, quicker service in emergency rooms and physician engagement, Van Marcke said. Some goals include lowering the number of infections patients acquire while in the hospital, reducing the number of times a patient gets readmitted to the hospital after being discharged and reducing mortality rates.
“Our objective is to be the safest hospital you can go to,” he said.
Some progress already has been made on improving speed of service in the emergency room, he said. A year ago, Baptist Health’s five hospitals and the freestanding emergency department in north Shelby County had a combined 5,000 patients leave the emergency room prior to receiving treatment, largely due to long wait times, Van Marcke said. Now, a year later, that number has been reduced by 50%, he said.
Van Marcke was asked Tuesday if Orlando Health had examined things in Alabama such as infant mortality rates and how those compare with statistics from the company’s Florida markets.
He said Baptist Health completed community needs assessments for all of its Alabama markets about four months ago, and each community has different risk factors and tendencies. He also said Baptist Health had not yet done much comparison to its Florida markets because it currently has different systems for electronic records between the new markets. Once the Alabama operations are converted to the same electronic record system in June, those comparisons should be easier to make, he said.
Van Marcke also was asked about what Baptist Health is doing to recruit staff. Van Marcke said colleges and universities aren’t producing enough health care workers right now. It’s not because of a lack of interest on the part of students, but rather a lack of capacity and resources to hire more faculty, he said.
Baptist Health is partnering with the nursing programs at Samford University and the University of Montevallo to provide them with more resources, he said.
Van Marcke also noted that recruiting people to work in Florida is easier than recruiting people to work in central Alabama. People tend to need to have some kind of connection to Alabama already that would entice them to come work here, he said.
While the need to hire “traveling” employees increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, Orlando Health has had good success in stabilizing its workforce in Florida, Van Marcke said. Orlando Health has 35,000 employees in Florida, and fewer than 10 are “traveling” employees, he said.
Van Marcke on Tuesday introduced Amy Wheeler, the chief financial officer for Baptist Health, and Sarah Gilbert, president of Baptist Health Brookwood Hospital, who joined the Alabama Region about three weeks ago.
Wheeler, who has been in Alabama for 13 months now, said the transformation from the former Brookwood Baptist Health organization has been remarkable.
“This first year has been all about laying a foundation — aligning our teams, strengthening our operations and investing where it matters,” Wheeler said. “Our commitment isn’t just to facilities. It’s to people.”
Photo by Jon Anderson
Amy Wheeler, the chief financial officer for Baptist Health, speaks at the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce meeting at the Vestavia Country Club on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025.
Every investment, every improvement and every partnership has been intentional, Wheeler said.
“As we enter into this new year, our focus will turn to not just laying the groundwork, but accelerating growth and innovation,” she said. “At Baptist Health, we’re proud. We’re proud of the progress we’ve made this year and even more excited about where we’re headed. Together, we’re building a stronger, more unified health system that’s rooted in excellence, compassion and innovation.”
