Health care availability expanding in Kyle

The city of Kyle has come a long way in a short time toward reversing a dearth of medical services that used to send its residents seeking care to San Marcos or Austin.
Kyle residents now have access to primary care doctors, specialists and affordable care, said Diana Blank, the city’s director of economic development.
“There is a synergy. … We have a little minihealth center in Kyle, and the most interesting part is that four years ago, you couldn’t even go to any specialist,” Blank said. “There was only one family practitioner.”
During the past three years, the city has added 623,203 square feet of medical office and health care space, including the 300,000-square-foot Seton Medical Center Hays. Also, San Antonio-based CommuniCare Health Centers, a federally qualified health center, opened a center in Kyle in 2010. And developers say more medical office space is coming in 2012.
Last year, Kyle gained a host of services, including ambulatory care, dialysis, physical therapy, pain management, dentistry and podiatry.
Blank believes the Seton hospital has been the main trigger for the medical sector’s growth, and she said the city made a concerted effort to target medical services as part of a strategic plan adopted in 2007.
Kyle continues to court health care-related businesses. The city is in talks with a medical-related call center that plans to decide in the next few months about moving there, Blank said. She declined to discuss the prospective move further.
Seton and other health care providers have been attracted to Kyle’s booming population, which grew 427 percent to 30,000 people during the last decade. The population is expected to double during the next eight years, Blank said.