A plan to close the Grady South DeKalb Health Center has been shelved and the focus is now on marketing the center.

Matt Gove, the health system’s senior vice president of marketing and communications, said this week that the 60-day pull-back from the closing decision, announced in May, is now permanent following discussions with community leaders and the DeKalb Board of Commissioners.

“We decided based on those discussions to continue operating the South DeKalb Neighborhood Center,” he said. “There is no plan for changes at this point.”

Gove said they are now working on a marketing plan specific for South DeKalb.

He did not elaborate on what that plan would be or when it would be implemented.

As part of a cost-cutting re-organization, Grady CEO Michael Young had targeted the center for closing on July 1. He backtracked on the decision following an uproar from the community,

The Grady South DeKalb Health Center has been located in donated space at the rear of the Kroger in the Rainbow Way Shopping Center since 1996.

With only 3,800 square feet, it is the second smallest of Grady’s nine neighborhood centers. Young had wanted to merge it into the larger East Atlanta center on Warren Street. Gove said because of its size, the South DeKalb Center has a smaller patient base and no space to offer x-rays or a pharmacy.

“The initial thinking was trying to have patients visit centers that provide a full range of services,” he said.

But the idea did not sit well with members of the DeKalb Board of Commissioners who voted in January to increase the county’s funding of Grady to $23 million. The payment, which is being disbursed in monthly payments of about $1.4 million, is intended to support the neighborhood health centers that Grady operates across the county.

For the first seven months of this year, Grady spokeswoman Denise Simpson said the South DeKalb health center has had 4,359 patient visits, about 545 to 688 visits monthly.

In contrast, the larger Grady Lindbergh Women and Children Health Center on Buford Highway had 7,355 visits; the Warren Street Center had 16,772 visits; and North DeKalb Health Center had 13,269. In 2008, South DeKalb Center had 8,800 patient visits.

Gove said Grady’s busiest neighborhood health centers see 130 patients a day.

“Neighborhood centers are important to us,” he said. “They can be an avenue to reach new patients. We were looking at how to grow business.”

To expand services in South DeKalb, Gove said they will have to relocate from the Kroger.

“Rather than move out and have no presence in South DeKalb, we decided to continue there while we examine options,” he said.

Gove said finding funds to invest in neighborhood centers is difficult but that as part of Grady’s $325 million capital campaign, they are talking to donors about health centers.

Commissioner Larry Johnson, who fought the closing of the center which is in his district, said he has a verbal commitment from Grady not to close the center but is awaiting something in writing that he can share with the community.

At an Aug. 17 joint meeting of Fulton and DeKalb commissioners on health care at the Maloof Auditorium, Young said the health system is encouraging patients who use the emergency for primary care to visit their neighborhood health centers. He said social workers have been assigned to patients who use the emergency room 30 times a year to train them how to know when they need an emergency room, a health center or a primary care doctor.

Gove said signs and brochures have also been placed in the emergency rooms and specialty clinics to help educate patients on locations of neighborhood centers.