NASHVILLE — Anthony Burdick, director of pastoral care at Baptist Memorial Health Care in Memphis, delivered an update on the medical system’s operations during the April Board of Directors meeting for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.
Baptist Memorial Health Care is one of the largest not-for-profit health systems in the United States. They operate 24 hospitals across Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas with 1,100 employed providers. The system manages 3,860 licensed beds and collaborates with 6,000 affiliated physicians and licensed providers, employing a total of 22,000 team members.
“I believe to date, we are the largest healthcare provider in the state of Mississippi,” Burdick noted.
The system includes a freestanding emergency department in Arlington. “That little bitty ER with 10 beds is seeing 50 to 60 patients a day. That’s on the order of about 15,000 people a year,” Burdick explained.
Baptist Memorial is expanding with plans to build a new facility in Fayette County between Oakland and Somerville to serve an underserved portion of West Tennessee. The system recently announced negotiations with Arkansas Methodist Medical Center in Paragould, Ark., for a potential merger. Additionally, they are competing to acquire a hospital in Starkville, Miss.
“So it could be by the next time or two that I come to bring this report, we could be up from 24 to 27 hospitals before too much longer,” said Burdick.
The system has contributed $465 million in community benefits and uncompensated care to the communities they serve.
“Baptist Memorial is a $4 billion bottom line organization. We are not-for-profit. We provide almost a half a billion dollars in charitable community benefit and charitable care in all of our facilities across the three states,” Burdick said.
Annually, the hospitals serve 141,000 discharges; 597,000 emergency department visits; 80,000 surgical procedures; and deliver 13,000 babies.
“I want to let you know that because of groups like our Baptist Women’s Auxiliary and other efforts, the vast majority of those new mothers receive either little white New Testaments or babies’ first Bible or some form of scripture all across our system. We’ve been doing that since around the beginning, 1912,” Burdick explained.
The Rev. Jimmy Terry Preaching Series, established in 2017 and named after a board member who passed away that year, is now in its eighth year. The ministry invites a pastor every third Thursday to deliver a message to employees, physicians, patients, and visitors. These sermons are broadcast and shared on social media, garnering 66,000 views between October and February.
“When you talk about until every Tennessean hears the Gospel, Baptist Memorial Health Care System is trying our best to help with that because the theme for that series is ‘it’s all about Jesus,’” said Burdick.
Over the past six months, Baptist facilities have continued their faith-based mission through various activities. Baptist Memorial Healthcare and Christ Community Health Services hosted the annual Tree of Faith, Hope & Love holiday luncheon for 170 individuals experiencing homelessness.
Attendees were regular patients of Baptist Operation Outreach, a clinic that delivers free medical care to more than 1,300 homeless individuals. At the event, 41 volunteers served a hot meal and distributed backpacks containing essential winter items.
The Baptist Memorial Health Care Foundation reported a record-breaking fundraising year in 2024, thanks to donations from Baptist employees, board members, and friends. These funds supported clinical research and innovations, 355 scholarships for Baptist Health Sciences University students, 8,400 grief sessions and camps for kids, teens, and adults at the Baptist Centers for Good Grief, and transportation assistance for more than 2,000 cancer patients.
Burdick emphasized that chaplains minister daily to patients, guests, and staff members across all facilities. “When I do new employee orientation, I always close by telling them, ‘Hey folks, I’m not the only minister in the room. Every one of you has been called here to minister,’” he said.
He shared an anecdote illustrating this commitment: “One morning, one of the staff members said that his father was there for surgery and the nurses all gathered around his gurney before he went back for his procedure and prayed for him, and that just says something about who we are. We’re all about the threefold ministry of Christ, of healing, preaching and teaching.” B&R