Healthcare Industry in Vero Beach and Indian River County

Private health care and social assistance employers in Indian River County averaged 11,151 jobs at 694 establishments in 2025, about one in five private jobs in the county around Vero Beach (BLS QCEW 2025, Indian River County).

The county total for all private industries was 52,520 jobs that year, so healthcare and social assistance held about 21 percent of private payrolls. The sector added 245 jobs over 2024, a 2.2 percent rise, while total private employment in Indian River County was nearly flat. Its average annual pay was $67,621, slightly above the $62,687 private average (QCEW 2025 annual averages).

Healthcare is also more concentrated in Indian River County than in the country. The QCEW gives the sector an employment location quotient of 1.31, meaning its share of county jobs is about 31 percent larger than its share of national jobs (QCEW location quotients). Monthly figures for the Sebastian-Vero Beach metro point the same way: education and health services held 12,700 jobs from March to July 2026 and 12,800 in August 2026, a preliminary 2.4 percent above a year earlier, while total nonfarm jobs slipped 0.2 percent (BLS Economy at a Glance, Sebastian-Vero Beach).

Doctors' offices, clinics and other ambulatory providers employ the most people in Indian River County healthcare, 4,652 in 2025, while the county's eight private hospital establishments pay the most, averaging $91,917 a year (BLS QCEW 2025).

Hospitals drove more than half of the 2025 gain in Indian River County, adding 130 jobs, a 4.2 percent rise. The pay gap inside the sector is wide: hospital jobs averaged more than twice the $38,504 paid in nursing and residential care, where the county's assisted living and nursing homes sit (QCEW subsector rows).

One level down in Indian River County, offices of physicians had 187 establishments and 2,150 jobs at an average of $86,495, but lost 78 jobs from 2024, so the ambulatory gain came from other providers such as home health care services, which added 84 jobs to reach 844. In residential care, continuing care retirement communities and assisted living facilities for the elderly had 18 establishments and 1,209 jobs at $36,194, and nursing care facilities had 9 establishments and 618 jobs at $44,104 (QCEW four-digit rows).

Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital is the largest healthcare employer in Indian River County with 2,027 employees in the county's 2025 principal employer table, second only to the School District of Indian River County (Indian River County ACFR FY2025, Schedule 15).

The same schedule lists Orlando Health Sebastian River Hospital with 750 employees and the Visiting Nurse Association with 500, and puts the county labor force at 67,543. Nine years earlier, in 2016, the Vero Beach hospital, then Indian River Medical Center, had 1,753 employees and Sebastian River Medical Center 698. Footnotes to the schedule date both name changes, January 1, 2019 for the Vero Beach hospital's move to the Cleveland Clinic name and October 2024 for the Sebastian hospital's move to the Orlando Health name (ACFR Schedule 15 notes).

Hospital headcount grew, but not as fast as the county workforce. Between the 2016 and 2025 tables the Vero Beach hospital rose from 1,753 to 2,027 employees, about 16 percent, and the Sebastian hospital from 698 to 750, while the Indian River County labor force used for the percentages grew from 57,162 to 67,543 (ACFR principal employers, 2025 and 2016). That is why the Vero Beach hospital's share of county employment slipped from 3.07 percent to 3.00 percent even as it added staff.

The figures disagree by source, and the difference matters when quoting them. The provider list on the county economic development site, indianrivered.com, gives Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital 2,600 employees and Orlando Health Sebastian 700 to 800 (economic development healthcare page), while the county financial report, which credits the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce and county budgets as its sources, prints 2,027 and 750. The economic development list also puts the Visiting Nurse Association at 400 to 500 employees and Treasure Coast Community Health at 100 to 199 (economic development provider list).

The main Vero Beach hospital campus is Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital at 1000 36th Street, Vero Beach, 32960, main number 772-567-4311 (Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital).

The hospital's own page lists the Welsh Heart Center, the Scully-Welsh Cancer Center and the Rosner Family Health and Wellness Center among the specialized programs it hosts (Cleveland Clinic location page). Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Treasure Coast is at 1600 37th St., Vero Beach, with a main line of (772) 778-2100, a referral line of (772) 563-4070 and visiting hours from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Encompass Health Treasure Coast).

None of the pages checked for this guide, the county report, the hospital and rehabilitation hospital location pages, gives a licensed bed count, so the table compares headcount only. The Sebastian hospital's own site could not be read when this guide was checked, which is why its row shows the county listing instead of a street address (ACFR Schedule 15).

The Indian River County Hospital District, set up by a 1959 special act with seven publicly elected trustees, leases the Vero Beach hospital to its operator and funds care by other local organizations (Indian River County Hospital District history).

VCOM's 2024 announcement says the district currently leases the space in which Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital provides services (VCOM). The district history says the trustees gave up management of the hospital in 1984, handing it on lease to a community not-for-profit, Indian River Memorial Hospital, Inc., and set up an Indigent Care Agreement to help fund care for county residents without insurance. The district's timeline shows how that money spread into other workplaces: funding for the Fellsmere Medical Center from 1994, now Treasure Coast Community Health Center, a 1996 lease of district land to the Visiting Nurse Association of the Treasure Coast for a Hospice House, and a 1996 lease of part of a former Gifford school building for a health center, and in 2004 it funded a new building to relocate the Gifford Health Center (district timeline). The timeline adds that in 2024 the district sold 14.5 acres, including the Hospice House and vacant land on 37th Street, to the Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice Foundation, so the hospice site is no longer district land.

That structure explains why two of the county's largest healthcare employers, the Visiting Nurse Association and Treasure Coast Community Health, appear on both the economic development employer list and the district's history. The Vero Beach healthcare hub covers the district's assistance programs for residents.

A medical college agreement announced September 3, 2024 brings an Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine educational facility to the Vero Beach hospital campus, in a three-way arrangement with the Indian River County Hospital District and Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital (VCOM announcement).

VCOM says the facility is on the Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital campus, in an existing building on land owned by the Hospital District, and that the district would lease the space to the college. Third and fourth year VCOM students are to receive training at the hospital, and the college says some of them already observe clinical interactions there and are mentored by its physicians (VCOM).

The announcement quotes the hospital's chief medical officer calling it the primary core teaching hospital for VCOM medical students on the Treasure Coast, which ties the largest healthcare employer in the 2025 county table to physician training. Last verified: October 18, 2026, with the BLS QCEW county file, Schedule 15 of the Indian River County FY2025 financial report, the Hospital District timeline and the VCOM announcement re-read that day.