By Jenny Dittes, CEO, and Liz Ferrell, Development and Community Relations Specialist
HOPE Family Health has expanded to Gallatin!
After nearly two years of hoping, praying, and exploring options – and with the generous support of community partners including Highpoint Gallatin and Sumner Regional Medical Center, the Memorial Foundation, and the Carolyn Smith Foundation – HOPE Gallatin officially became a reality on Monday, December 18th, 2023, when we opened our doors to our first patient.
HOPE Gallatin is now the proud occupant of Suite #210 of the Sumner Medical Plaza at 300 Steam Plant Road, adjacent and connected to Sumner Regional Medical Center. It’s hard to believe that after almost a year of working toward this goal, we finally made it a reality!
The office space came together beautifully, with Sumner Regional completing renovations on Friday, December 1st, and move-in beginning Monday, December 4th. The walls are painted in HOPE’s lovely blue-green colors and the floor has been replaced with the gray plank flooring already in place at our other offices. The office looks professional, inviting, and on-brand.
Thanks to HOPE's Expansion Team, and with the help of numerous individuals, the space now has telephones, trash cans, medical equipment, copy machines, printers, a refrigerator, exam tables, supplies, a working security system, and pretty much everything else needed to launch medical and behavioral health services. The wooden double doors at the entrance received a beautiful new glass cut-out where HOPE’s logo greets visitors.
It took an immense effort from the entire HOPE Expansion Team to bring this new office, HOPE’s third facility, into reality. Here is a list of just some of the work involved.
Facilitating and overseeing tasks, schedules and priorities to get the facility in working order – everything from putting together furniture to communicating with contractors and personnel at Sumner Regional.
Overseeing the upgrade in Internet service and installing and prepping printers and phone systems to get them ready for provider use.
Ensuring the reception area is set up and ready to receive patients.
Bringing together the myriad financial and technical details associated with expansion.
Creating a plan to ensure 340B medications are available to our Gallatin patients.
Setting up the medical exam rooms, supply closets and offices and the Behavioral Health offices and space.
Walk-throughs by each department head, consulting checklists to ensure readiness.
On the marketing and communications side, a press release went out in early December and a “coming soon” flyer is being printed to provide to hospital staff, provider contacts, and the general public. In the coming weeks and months HOPE representatives will participate in speaking engagements, radio appearances and newspaper interviews to promote the HOPE Gallatin location.
The first patient at HOPE Gallatin was a young man in his late 30s, without health insurance, suffering with a debilitating neurological disease that has rendered him unable to live alone, drive or even walk without assistance, and struggling with depression and anxiety. Through HOPE he is receiving behavioral healthcare including counseling and medication management, referrals for neurological consultations, a follow-up appointment with a HOPE medical provider, discounted medication through HOPE’s Prescription Assistance Program, and a patient navigator to help him access resources for the home equipment he needs to regain a measure of self-sufficiency. This young man, a textbook example of the integrated health model HOPE strives to achieve with our patients, served as a reminder to our HOPE Gallatin staff: This is why HOPE exists. This is what we do.
We are excited to take HOPE’s mission, core values, and patient-centered, integrated approach to our friends and neighbors in Gallatin and surrounding communities. We invite you, our readers, to become a partner in our mission by letting people know about HOPE and the services we offer as we strive to be the hands, feet, and voice of HOPE.
(Top photo: The door to HOPE. Middle photo: Freddie Fuqua, Building & Facilities Manager, assembles furniture for the new HOPE Gallatin location. Bottom photo: Sandra Maxfield, Housekeeping, and Michael White, IT Manager, helped Freddie to make sure HOPE Gallatin was operational and ready to receive patients on opening day December 18th.)