Polk Medical Center had a $31.48 million impact on the local economy in 2010, according to the Georgia Hospital Association, the state’s largest hospital trade group.

In the report, GHA said Georgia hospitals contributed more than $38 billion to the state’s economy in 2010, the most recent year for which economic impact totals are available.

The report also found that Polk Medical Center provided approximately $3.89 million in uncompensated care while sustaining 232 full-time jobs throughout Cedartown, Rockmart, Aragon and the rest of the state, including 108 full and part-time employees at Polk Medical Center.

According to the GHA, the hospital’s impact includes $13.6 million in direct expenditures in 2010. When combined with an economic multiplier developed by the United States Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, the total economic impact of those expenditures was $31.48 million. This output multiplier considers the ripple effect of direct hospital expenditures on other sectors of the economy, such as medical supplies, durable medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. Economic multipliers are used to model the resulting impact of a change in one industry on the circular flow of spending within an economy as a whole.

In addition, Polk Medical Center generated household earnings of $6.55 million. The multiplier effect brings the earnings total to $12.17 million, the GHA said.

The hospital provided $565,346 in indigent care, $118,735 in charity care and wrote off $1.45 million in bad debt in 2010, according to the report.