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In 1966, when pharmacist Howard Brooks established a hometown drugstore in Pembroke, North Carolina, he could hardly have imagined how the world would change in the coming years. Over the ensuing decades, Brooks’ hometown pharmacy grew to become HealthKeeperz, one of southeast North Carolina’s premier community-based home health service providers. Now, in its continuing mission to meet the community’s evolving health needs with excellence in care, HealthKeeperz has sealed an agreement to sell the home health segment of its portfolio of services to leading not-for-profit home health care provider BAYADA Home Health Care.
HealthKeeperz and BAYADA
Founded in 1975 and headquartered in Moorestown, New Jersey, just outside Philadelphia, BAYADA Home Health Care is an international nonprofit home health agency with more than 360 offices in 23 states across the U.S, with additional locations in Germany, India, Ireland, New Zealand, and South Korea. The company’s services include nursing, rehabilitation, therapy, hospice, and assistive care for clients of all ages, from children to seniors. BAYADA has 20 locations in North Carolina with a range of services that include pediatric, hospice, and assistive care.
When the sale is complete later this year, HealthKeeperz and BAYADA will each be able to focus their efforts on the unique strengths that can best help them serve the community. BAYADA will take charge of HealthKeeperz’s Fayetteville and Laurinburg home health offices, while HealthKeeperz will continue to serve its customers’ hospice, case management, and home medical equipment needs. The new arrangement will enable HealthKeeperz to work toward future expansion goals while simultaneously allowing BAYADA to leveraging its management expertise, passionate workforce, and clinical excellence to help grow its presence in North Carolina.
HealthKeeperz: A Continued Commitment to Quality Health Care in the Carolinas
Taking BAYADA’s scale, scope, and patient-centric track record into consideration and knowing the company’s broad-based, highly experienced team would have a positive impact on health outcomes within its beloved community were crucial factors in HealthKeeperz’s decision to move forward with the sale.
“The transition of our home health services is an evolution in HealthKeeperz’s commitment to providing quality health care to the southeastern region of North Carolina,” said HealthKeeperz President Tim Brooks. “By selling our home care business to BAYADA, we can concentrate on the areas of health care where we have long-term strategies to scale and innovate, such as hospice care. We are grateful for the continued trust placed in HealthKeeperz by our local communities and we look forward to the positive impacts that BAYADA will bring to our neighbors and friends.”
How BAYADA’s Not-for-Profit Mission Ensures a Community-Focused Vision
Community involvement has always been the cornerstone of the HealthKeeperz philosophy. Taking a faith-forward approach, the family-owned and family-run company has consistently reinforced its care model with a community service component to forge a sense of unity for those with whom it works as well as those whom it serves. As an organization also dedicated to uplifting the communities it serves, BAYADA’s goals are very much in sync with the HealthKeeperz mission, making the two an extremely good fit.
In 2018, with the goal of keeping its mission-driven culture intact, BAYADA switched from a sole-ownership, for-profit model to a not-for-profit business model. In order to guarantee that BAYADA would remain “family-guided, if not family-owned,” and that it could never be sold or go public, the entire company was donated to a newly created charitable foundation. “It was the only way to ensure that ‘compassion, excellence and reliability’ [BAYADA’s motto] would continue to take precedence over profits,” founder and current chairman of the board of trustees J. Mark Baiada explained in an April 10, 2019, story for generocity.org.
The newly minted agreement between BAYADA and HealthKeeperz is a reaffirmation by both companies to deliver only the finest in compassionate, professional care for patients and their families. “BAYADA is thrilled at the opportunity to partner with HealthKeeperz to continue their strong commitment to the North Carolina community and to continue to grow in this region,” said BAYADA CEO David Baiada, who assumed the role from his father in 2017. “We look forward to welcoming the HealthKeeperz Home Health staff and patients into the BAYADA family and to working together through this mission-aligned partnership to continue to improve health care outcomes in our region.”
What Will Coming Changes Mean for the HealthKeeperz Community?
The implementation of the terms of the agreement is scheduled to be finalized by the spring of 2023. Those who’ve come to rely on HealthKeeperz can expect some changes; however, while there will be a new provider for home health services, HealthKeeperz and BAYADA have promised to do their utmost to ensure the transition is seamless for patients, staff, and partners.
“We are committed to creating continuing education opportunities to help our employees grow in their careers and better serve our clients, and clinical innovation and technology advancements to allow us to serve our clients in new, more efficient ways,” BAYADA’s website states.
Throughout the transition and beyond, HealthKeeperz assures clients and the southeastern North Carolina community that they will continue to render hospice and case management services and to supply vital home medical equipment and supplies just as they’ve done in the past. “We are the experts and resource you can trust for hospice, [home medical equipment], and case management,” HealthKeeperz stated — and that, they assure everyone, isn’t going to change.
