BayCare Contributes Half a Billion in Community Benefit in 2025

CLEARWATER, Fla., April 7, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- BayCare Health System today released its 2025 Report to the Community, highlighting its growth and leadership in West Central Florida as an academic health system, top employer and community partner dedicated to improving health in the region.

Operating revenues grew to $6.97 billion in 2025, up from $6.27 billion in 2024. BayCare's community benefit spend in the categories of charity care, subsidizing the underinsured and health-related social services grew as well to $500 million in 2025, up from $467 million in 2024.

"BayCare's 2025 Report to the Community reflects a year of meaningful progress, advancing our role as an academic health system, delivering clinical excellence, and expanding programs that improve community health," said BayCare President and CEO Stephanie Conners, MBA, BSN, RN. "It also celebrates what truly sets BayCare apart: our dedicated team members, our commitment to being a great place to work, and the powerful patient stories that remind us why our work matters."

Through its Community Benefit efforts, BayCare continued to address unmet health needs identified in Community Health Needs Assessment plans for the region. By partnering to support free health services and reducing barriers to care, such as the cost of medications, BayCare helped individuals and families access essential health services they might not otherwise receive.

With food insecurity affecting one in seven households, BayCare expanded programs to meet this critical health need both inside and outside its hospital walls. In 2025, BayCare continued to support 42 school-based food pantries operated by Feeding Tampa Bay. BayCare distributed 11,018 Healing Bags to hospital patients reporting food insecurity at discharge. And it expanded its food clinic program, resulting in 20,917 visits across three BayCare food clinics.

BayCare's evolution as an academic health system was marked by rapid growth in its Graduate Medical Education (GME) programs and the acquisition and the opening of the BayCare Academic Health and Research Corridor in Tampa. BayCare also signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Northwestern Medicine, Chicago's premier integrated academic health system, the final key step in its evolution as an academic health system. The collaboration will accelerate BayCare's ability to elevate care by bringing cutting‑edge treatments, research and expertise to West Central Florida, providing the care families need close to home.

To strengthen the training pipeline for future physicians, BayCare in 2025 added six medical residency programs and one fellowship program, trained nearly 300 resident physicians and graduated its first class of BayCare-sponsored pediatrics residents. On Match Day 2025, BayCare-sponsored GME programs achieved a 100% match with new residents and fellows.

BayCare continues to rank nationally among health systems for clinical quality and outcomes. In fall of 2025, 11 of BayCare's acute care hospitals received "A" grades on patient safety from the nonprofit Leapfrog Group. In addition, BayCare earned 17 Press Ganey Human Experience Awards for extraordinary patient experience based on patient surveys.

BayCare's commitment to provide the right care at the right time and right place drove the expansion of its hospital and ambulatory services in West Central Florida. BayCare broke ground on BayCare Hospital Manatee, which will open as the county's only not-for-profit hospital system in 2028, and the adjacent BayCare HealthHub (Manatee), which will open in 2026.

BayCare announced plans to build freestanding emergency departments (FSEDs) in Valrico in Hillsborough County and Davenport in Polk County, along with its planned FSED in Lakeland. To support families, BayCare can now treat children as young as six months at any of its 17 BayCare Urgent Care locations.

BayCare hospitals celebrated the birth of 13,255 babies, the most of any health system in the region. BayCare now has Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) in all seven of its hospitals with maternity units, ensuring families have access to this vital newborn care if needed.

In Pasco County, BayCare opened the state's first behavioral health urgent care for patients in urgent need of mental health or substance use services, which served more than 1,600 patients within its first year of operation. On the same campus in New Port Richey, BayCare Behavioral Health broke ground for a new Central Receiving Facility (CRF), also the first of its kind in Pasco County, to provide assessment, intervention and referrals for individuals experiencing mental health or substance use crises under one roof.

Named a top employer by Great Place to Work® and Fortune magazine, the Tampa Bay Times as well as one of 100 PEOPLE Companies that Care®, BayCare supported its growing workforce of nearly 34,000 team members in 2025, investing $927 million in benefits, career development, and rewards and recognition. With more than 10,000 nurses, nurse educators and RN advanced practice providers, BayCare earned state and national recognition for nurse well-being from the American Nurses Credentialing Center and the Florida Nurses Association.

BayCare's 2025 Report to the Community covers activity from Jan. 1, 2025, to Dec. 31, 2025. The full report is available online here.

About BayCare

BayCare is a leading not-for-profit academic health care system that connects individuals and families to a wide range of services at 16 hospitals, including a children's hospital, and hundreds of other convenient locations throughout the Tampa Bay and central Florida regions. The system is West Central Florida's largest provider of behavioral health and pediatric services and its provider group, BayCare Medical Group, is one of the largest in the region. BayCare's diverse network of ambulatory services includes laboratories, imaging, surgical centers, BayCare Urgent Care locations, wellness centers and one of Florida's largest home care agencies, BayCare HomeCare. BayCare's mission is to improve the health of all it serves through community-owned, health care services that set the standard for high-quality, compassionate care. For more information, visit BayCare.org. 

SOURCE BayCare Health System