Statements
Mission
Siloam Health's mission is to share the love of Christ by serving those in need through health care.
Background
In 1991, a group of Belmont Church members decided to become part of the solution to our broken health care system by starting a volunteer-driven clinic to care for the uninsured and underserved that would address not just the symptoms, but also the root causes of poor health. Thus Siloam Health was born. Siloam was founded to serve people who were falling through the cracks of the established medical system due to financial, language, and cultural barriers. The clinic began with a few volunteer providers seeing patients on Saturday mornings in 1,000 square feet of renovated apartment space in an inner city neighborhood. With no federal or private insurance reimbursement for indigent care, Siloam grew gradually in size and reputation, leveraging volunteers and trainees from nearby Vanderbilt University Medical Center to become a model for charitable care in Tennessee. In 2005 Siloam moved into a 12,000-square-foot facility in Melrose and in 2014 launched community health initiatives to address the social determinants of health. Amidst the pandemic of 2020 Siloam opened its first satellite walk-in clinic in Antioch.
Impact
Siloam's community impact in the last year includes:
Community Health - Our bilingual Community Health Workers (CHWs) provide culturally competent health system navigation and education to Nashville immigrant populations. Siloam Health's 7 CHWs served 677 clients in the last year and a 97% graduation rate was achieved among the participants. The Comprehensive Care Program, which focuses on chronic disease and mental health, saw 487 new patients enrolled and 68% of those patients improved or meet their long-term health goal (i.e., improving A1c, weight, hypertension, etc.) upon completion of the program. Rapid Response, which provides support for Davidson County households dealing with the aftermath of COVID-19 saw 190 new enrollees in the last year. CHWs attended or led over 50 community-based events, reaching more than 4,000 immigrant community members where they shared information about COVID vaccines and other health topics.
Community Health Honors: Senior Community Health Worker Carolina Garcia was selected as one of only 20 Ambassadors for the National Association of Community Health Workers, and the only Ambassador to represent Tennessee. For the next two years she will serve to promote the Community Health Worker profession and connect the national association with other state and local CHW networks across the United States.
Community Partnerships - We had over 400 dedicated volunteers from the Nashville community donate over 7,000 hours of service during the last year.
Nashville Neighbors - Our Nashville Neighbors program gives the community an opportunity to build relationships with newly arrived refugee families by providing help with health system navigation. With an overhauled curriculum, in 2023 the Nashville Neighbors program served 16 pairs of newly arrived refugee families and volunteer teams, representing over 100 volunteers and 98 refugee individuals.
New Staff - We hired an additional Behavioral Health Consultant in February 2023 to focus on the behavioral health needs of our patient population at the Antioch clinic. She also partners with our Senior Behavioral Health Consultant to help develop the best strategies to care for our patients in this area.
Satellite Clinic Expands Capacity - Located in the heart of a diverse neighborhood, the clinic has cared for over 8,200 patients and experienced over 18,500 patients visits since its launch in June 2020.
Student Education - Siloam seeks to multiply our mission by training the next generation of health care professionals in the art of culturally sensitive, whole-person care. Over the last year, 54 students from 10 different universities received training through this program and 92% reported increased comfort working within a poverty medicine framework and providing cross-cultural health care. Medical student, Youssef Sabet, relayed, "the biggest thing I learned is what it means to put the patient first."
Needs
An estimated 200,000 Middle Tennesseans are uninsured, and Tennessee boasts one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations in the country. Approximately 1 in 7 Nashville/Davidson County residents are immigrants. Many of these immigrants are part of the 83,000 (12.4%) Nashville residents living below the poverty level (2020 Metro Social Services Community Needs Evaluation) and disproportionate numbers of immigrant and refugee communities experience hardship when it comes to accessing health care. This population is also more prone to have experiences that adversely affect health, such as job loss, food insecurity, and housing instability. Nashville's underserved and uninsured continue to need a trusted healthcare provider like Siloam Health.
CEO Statement
Approximately 35,000 of Nashville's immigrants now lack health insurance. This population was disproportionally impacted during the pandemic and continue to experience difficulty in accessing medical care due to linguistic and cultural barriers. These unprotected minority communities need a trusted health care provider like Siloam Health. Siloam stands out among other safety net health care providers in the Greater Nashville area for our commitment to whole-person care and expertise in cultural competency. With roughly 1 in 7 Davidson County residents who are born outside of the United States, and thousands who are uninsured, the need is great. Our integrated model of whole-person care is anchored by a multicultural team of nurses, physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, behavioral health consultants, social workers, and a director of spiritual care. Starting with one Vietnamese refugee patient in the early 1990s, Siloam has developed trusting relationships with numerous ethnic communities and has been entrusted to oversee Tennessee's Refugee Medical Screening program for over two decades. Today 95% of our patients are born outside of the U.S., representing 87 homelands and speaking 52 languages.
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Health Care - Community Clinics |
| Secondary Category: | Religion- Related - Christianity |
| Tertiary Category: | - |
Areas Served
Siloam has two clinic locations in Davidson County: (1) Siloam Health Melrose and (2) Siloam Health Antioch. Siloam's geographic catchment area is a mix of primarily urban and suburban areas with 90% of our patients living in Davidson County, mainly in the Southeast along the Murfreesboro and Nolensville Road corridors. A small number of patients come from rural areas in the surrounding nine counties across the Mid-state.
| TN - Cheatham |
| TN - Davidson |
| TN - Robertson |
| TN - Rutherford |
| TN - Sumner |
| TN - Williamson |
| TN - Wilson |
| TN - Bedford |
| TN - Dickson |
| TN - Maury |
