University Medical Center in Livingston is poised to become the medical home for University of West Alabama students, as well as university faculty, staff and their families.
Under an agreement signed Aug. 1, UMC-Livingston will be a provider of primary health care and employment health services to members of the UWA community.
UMC-Livingston is part of the University Medical Center network of clinics in West Alabama, which are operated by The University of Alabama College of Community Health Sciences.
“We wanted to bring a full-spectrum primary care practice here to Livingston,” said Dr. Richard Friend, dean of the UA College of Community Health Sciences. “Our mission at UMC is to help improve the health of individuals and communities in rural Alabama, and expanding access to care in Livingston is one of the ways we are meeting that mission.”
UWA has a student population of more than 2,300 and employs nearly 600.
Dr. Ken Tucker, president of UWA, said the partnership with UMC-Livingston will allow the university to provide its students with high-quality health care and a broad range of medical services that they might not otherwise have the opportunity to access.
“Being a small, regional public institution like we are, we don’t have health care services on our campus. So, we need to partner with health care providers to ensure that our students get the quality health care services that they need,” he said. “UMC-Livingston is a prime example of such a partnership. Having another high-quality health care option is really critical to our students’ overall well-being.”
UMC-Livingston opened July 25, 2022. Over the past year, UMC-Livingston has increased access to health care for individuals and families in Sumter County and will now have the opportunity to do so for the UWA community.
Friend said the clinic also has the ability to connect the community to medical specialists and resources through telemedicine and digital resources such as remote patient monitoring.
“I believe that with the partnership created to open UMC-Livingston, we have a model that can be replicated in other rural Alabama communities that are most in need of primary care medicine,” he said.
University Medical Center is the largest multispecialty medical practice in West Alabama with locations in Tuscaloosa, Northport, Demopolis, Fayette, Carrollton and Livingston, and more than 150,000 annual patient visits.