I write today with appreciation for the team members at Laredo Medical Center who help make the Laredo-Webb County region a healthier, better place to live, and gratitude for patients who choose our hospital for their care. The impact of Laredo Medical Center adds up as the skilled and compassionate hands of physicians, nurses and other team members deliver safe, quality care around the clock every day. Last year, patients received the medical care they needed through more than 169,000 interactions with our hospital and physician clinics as the pandemic heightened the need for medical care.
The hospital has supported more than 2,700 COVID inpatients since March 2020 while sustaining our other services. To help protect the community from the COVID-19 virus, our team vaccinated 2,200 employees, medical staff and other healthcare professionals and administered monoclonal antibody treatments to more than 600 outpatients helping them avoid serious symptoms and hospitalization.
Employees and medical staff brought their skills and compassion to support more than 39,400 emergency department visits, more than 12,800 inpatients and more than 11,500 surgeries. Over 169,000 patients received care across Laredo Physician Associates, LMC North, LMC South and Laredo CareClinics. We also delivered joy to local families as more than 2,500 babies were born.
Beyond clinical care, Laredo Medical Center is a major employer and regularly invests resources to expand and enhance the services available locally.
Laredo Medical Center continues to invest medical services, facilities and technologies that are important to patients. These include capital improvements totaling more than $5.8 million to acquire the latest robotic-assisted surgical system for complex operations, to open a larger Infusion Center for cancer care and other infusion therapy treatments, and to invest on a major upgrade of our MRI technology with a brand new radiology room. Access has been enhanced with the opening of a clinic in north Laredo and the recruitment of three family medicine physicians means more primary care is here locally.
Laredo Medical Center also gives back to the broader Laredo-Webb County region. In the last year, Laredo Medical Center provided over $232.8 million in charity and uncompensated care for the community’s most vulnerable. And the $12.9 million paid in property, sales and GRT taxes helps support civic resources and services.
We are pleased to provide more than $25,000 in donations and work with local charitable and community organizations such as United Way of Laredo, strengthening our community by offering financial support to 22 local agencies; Casa Misericordia, a shelter for victims of domestic violence that offers survivors a chance to reclaim their lives through comprehensive, holistic services; and Mercy Ministries of Laredo, providing primary healthcare services to the neediest residents of Webb County.
The hospital’s payroll of more than $102.7 million ripples across the local economy as employees buy goods and services, making the economy healthier as well.
And to ensure a strong healthcare workforce in the future, Laredo Medical Center is developing healthcare providers of the future through primary care residency programs which graduated their first 16 resident physicians in 2021 and enrolled 48 resident physicians between family medicine and internal medicine. Seven third-year medical students from the University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine are performing their clinical rotations for one year at Laredo Medical Center with the potential to later join as residents themselves.
Each of these initiatives and investments helps make the Laredo-Webb County region healthier and better for all. We are honored to help our community thrive and extremely proud of our hospital’s $373.7 million community impact in 2021.
