A newly released report commissioned by the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce said the city’s health care and bioscience industries’ combined worth have increased to $44.1 billion, and the numbers of sector jobs and salaries continue to rise each year.
The chamber held an event Dec. 1 at UT Health San Antonio celebrating the release of the economic study authored by Trinity University professors emeritus Richard Butler and Mary Stefl.
According to the economic study, the overall dollar volume of final sales of local health care and bioscientific services and products has grown 48% over 10 years from $29.7 billion in 2011 to $44.1 billion in 2021.
The document defines health services as including civilian hospitals, physicians, nursing and home health services providers, other health providers, ambulatory centers, and laboratories, as well as related military and Veterans Administration facilities and nonprofits.
The report said the economic effect of traditional health services has expanded 63% since 2011, while bioscience and related industries have grown by 35% over the same time frame. The study defines bioscience as covering development of medical devices, pharmaceuticals, pharmacies, social services and education/research.
“Health care continues to be a major driver of the San Antonio economy,” Butler told the audience at the Dec. 1 event.
Stefl said healthcare has the larger impact compared with bioscience because of increasing healthcare costs and a growing population.
"We have more people, we provide more healthcare services," Stefl said.
The report said local hospitals, health systems, biomedical and research agencies, and related industries employ more than 180,490 people.
While that jobs number is smaller than the 187,905 local health care-related employees counted by the Texas Workforce Commission in 2019, it is higher than the 156,231 local health/biomedical employees recorded by the TWC in 2011.
Butler and Stefl attributed the decrease in employment between 2019-21 to several factors, including the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The military medical headcount decreased by 4,000 due in part to structural changes in the military that have removed some commands from the organizational chart for the local military medical missions,” Butler and Stefl wrote in the study. “Nursing homes, hospitals and social services have also seen declines in employment since 2019. Some of this was attributable to COVID-19 and a shift towards using contract workers to ensure stable staffing.”
The study said the total annual local payroll in health care and bioscience has risen from $7.5 billion in 2011 to $11.2 billion in 2021, adding the average local industry employee earned $61,860 in 2021—a 12% increase over the 2019 local average.
According to the report, the average bioscience salary in 2021 was $83,049—significantly higher than the local average salary across both health care and bioscience in 2021, and the $57,264 average salary paid to nonindustry workers across the San Antonio area the same year.
Additionally, the report said San Antonio has the nation’s largest medical presence. While unable to collect firm numbers from federal military authorities, Butler and Stefl said the city hosts almost all U.S. Department of Defense medical trainees and predeployment trauma trainees.
The report said the financial effect of hospitals has more than doubled since 2011, while that of physicians’ offices has risen by 71% in the same period despite consolidation and growth of physicians' networks.
Butler said the trend of growth in the provision of health care across the San Antonio area can be felt over numerous years.
“Health care has been an important part of the San Antonio economy for a very long time,” Butler said.
The study said the effect of the local bioscience sector grew from $6.6 billion in 2019 to $8 billion in 2021.
Butler and Stefl wrote in the report that the local education and research sector is buoyed by the inclusion of UT Health San Antonio—formerly UT Health and Science Center San Antonio—and military medical training employees absent from TWC data.
The study’s authors also said bioscience’s local economic impact is about 50% more than the effect of all physicians’ offices around the San Antonio area.
“Though this impact has remained relatively constant over the decade, it masks significant shifts among the components of the local bioscience industry,” the report said.
A panel of experts representing the advocacy organization BioMedSA, University Health, UT Health San Antonio and Brooke Army Medical Center agreed the study is a confirmation of the strength and promise offered by San Antonio's healthcare and biomedical sectors. But they also agreed even more collaborative efforts are needed to further grow these industries.
"We need support from [the city of San Antonio, Bexar County] and the private sector," San Antonio Medical Foundation President Jim Reed said.
