By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

BIRMINGHAM – Alabaster’s Shelby Baptist Medical Center will be operating under a new parent company in the next few months after Baptist Health System and Tenet Healthcare announced they had signed an agreement to form a joint company on June 23.

The announcement came about six months after Baptist Health System, which owns and operates the 232-bed Shelby Baptist Medical Center in Alabaster, announced it was in talks with Tenet over forming a jointly owned company.

“The transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, is expected to be finalized in the third quarter of 2015,” read a June 23 Tenet release announcing the agreement signing.

As of June 23, the joint company had not announced its new name, nor the new name of Shelby Baptist.

“The innovative ways we deliver care will be more of a focus than the network name as we come together,” Keith Parrot, who will serve as the CEO of the joint venture, wrote in an email. “It will have to reflect what Baptist and Brookwood bring to the partnership.”

Once formed, the company will operate Brookwood Medical Center and all Baptist Health System facilities, including Shelby Baptist. Tenet currently is the parent company of Brookwood Medical Center.

When the agreement is finalized, it will unite Brookwood with Shelby Baptist, Citizens Baptist Medical Center, Princeton Baptist Medical Center, Walker Baptist Medical Center and 77 primary and specialty care clinics across central Alabama. The system would include more than 1,700 licensed beds, 7,300 employees and about 1,500 physicians.

The company also will manage Baptist Health Center clinics in Columbiana, Alabaster, Chelsea, Calera and Pelham, a vascular and endovascular surgery specialty center in Alabaster and the Shelby Advanced Arthritis Care facility in Alabaster.

The joint company will will be overseen by a board of five representatives each from Baptist and Tenet.

“We are excited about joining with Tenet to provide high-quality healthcare to communities across central Alabama,” Parrott wrote. “This partnership will strengthen our collective efforts and enhance healthcare across the region while also preserving the Baptist name and tradition, maintaining our Christian values and identity, and supporting our faith-based approach to healthcare.”

Former SBMC president David Wilson stepped down from his post at the hospital in late March to take the president position at the North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo, Miss.

Bob Phillips, the former president of Walker Baptist Medical Center, stepped in to replace Wilson at Shelby Baptist, and has been serving in the role since early April.