Statements
Mission
To open our hearts and hands in love and understanding by providing compassionate health care and nurturing to the uninsured who are working, disabled or those transitioning into work in Coffee, Franklin, and Moore counties.
Background
Partners For Healing was established in 2001 to provide free health care to the working uninsured of Coffee County and the surrounding counties. In 2008, it was decided that in order to qualify for services at the clinic, patients must live or work in Coffee, Moore, or Franklin Counties, have income less than 250% of the federal poverty guideline, and be uninsured.
Since the first year of operation, we have provided compassionate, integrated health care to patients. Services are provided by over 50 volunteers including a medical director, a full time Executive Director and 9 part-time paid staff, including 3 nurse practitioners, 2 nurses, a receptionist and finance/medical records coordinator.
In addition to primary health care, laboratory, x-ray, mammograms, mental health, nutrition, free prescriptions, and ultrasound services being provided by the clinic, specialty physician referrals have been provided by collaborating physicians and hospitals to ensure quality care for all of the patients.
Impact
The primary mission of Partners for Healing has been to provide free health care to patients working but with little or no access to healthcare due to their lack of insurance. As a result of obtaining these services, patients have improved health, mental health, and nutrition. Through Partners, patients have increased access to medications to manage both acute and chronic health conditions. Long term effects of our clinic include reduced visits to the hospital emergency rooms due to better management of chronic conditions and access to care for non-emergency conditions. Patients benefit from a better quality of life and are more productive employees with reduced absenteeism from their jobs.
Our goals at present are to increase awareness of the availability of the clinic to those whom we serve. Reaching new patients takes massive action, as many are illiterate or have little access to the paper. We are working to reach out through radio announcements, churches, businesses, and civic clubs. This is tied to three organizational priorities: (1) Putting the person that is health insecure at the center of all our work (2) Transforming the charitable healthcare experience to ensure all people have sufficient resources to live a healthy life and (3) Developing network capacity and capabilities to meet the need.
In the past year, we have had over 2,200 patient visits and of these patients, 56% have reported that their emergency room visits have decreased since coming to us. We recognize the need for our primary care options here at Partners for Healing to continue to grow so that we may continue to offer invaluable services to those in need in our community.
Needs
The most pressing needs of Partners for Healing are:
-Reaching those within our community who need and qualify for the medical care that we provide
-Cultivating more relationships within our community as we reach out to encourage increased local contributions
-Focusing on our women's health initiative for cardiovascular disease prevention and cervical and breast cancer screenings
-Developing resources to assist our patients who need specialized care that we are unable to provide
CEO Statement
Partners have changed the option for care for the working uninsured from neglect to access through strong partnerships with local medical providers and community resources. With over 1900 patients of record, our resources and staff are being stretched to meet the needs of a constantly growing number of working uninsured patients and their families. In 2023 we have been further impacted by changing leadership, staff, and funding. It is more important than ever to find strong paths forward as we grow and continue to provide for those in the region that qualify for our services.
As the new Executive Director of the organization it has been a blessing and privilege to be entrusted to lead an organization with such importance and history in our community. Partners is a one of a kind organization in this area and the only state safety-net clinic in Coffee, Franklin, and Moore counties of southern middle Tennessee.
In the coming year we hope to continue our efforts in outreach across all areas of service in the community and recharge relationships across the region. We find it more important than ever to increase case management for patients. We have seen an improvement in patient satisfaction and health as we have increased wrap around services such as food, clothing, and housing support. I hope to continue these efforts to insure the best overall health of all patients.
Board Chair Statement
On behalf of the board of Partners for Healing (PFH), thank you. We hope that you see yourself as an essential character in Partners' success. You helped us care for more than 430 individual patients in 2022, enabling us to care not only for their physical and mental health, but their social, emotional, and spiritual health as well.
In the coming year, intentionality will be key for increasing our outreach efforts to inform the public of our services as well as expanding and strengthening our relationships with community partners. We are also working to provide case management to help reduce the barriers to care present in our patients' lives, such as transportation and housing, that keep them from living their fullest and healthiest lives. Our staff works tirelessly to maintain honest communication with patients as well as outside healthcare providers; we strive to provide whole-person care and continue to innovate our outreach efforts to reflect this.
We appreciate community partnerships like yours that understand and share our mission and vision for our region. In short, your continued support and generosity will allow PFH to go deeper: with transformative health care for the undeserved, innovative outreach into particularly vulnerable communities, and highly impactful education for the next generation of health care providers. Together, we can strive for a more equitable local healthcare landscape, including the most vulnerable and neglected folks, to make our community the best and healthiest version of itself.
Service Categories |
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| Primary Category: | Health Care - Group Health Practices |
| Secondary Category: | Health Care - Health Support |
| Tertiary Category: | Health Care - Ambulatory & Primary Health Care |
Areas Served
We serve the the uninsured who live or are working, disabled or those transitioning into work in Coffee, Franklin, and Moore counties by providing free primary care. Patients who are employed in our service area but live outside the three counties may also receive services through Partners.
| TN - Coffee |
| TN - Franklin |
| TN - Moore |
