NASHVILLE, TN – Nashville General Hospital CEO Dr. Joseph Webb cut a ribbon Monday on a new health clinic in midtown. The facility on Charlotte Avenue is taking new patients and making same day appointments.
“Now bless, Lord, the hands of all who work in this place. Give them radiant smiles on their faces and receive those who are sick and help to make them well,” prayed Chaplain Omarán Lee.
The opening was attended by the clinic staff, officials and department heads of General Hospital, and members of the Metro Council Health & Hospital Committee. Just two years ago Nashville General was on the verge of closing. It survived and is now expanding health services to patients in West and North Nashville.
“In most cases it’s just primary care or specialty care. Usually you have one or the other but not both,” Webb said.
The idea is to have patients pick one of the center’s two general practitioners to be their primary care physician. And if they need to see a specialist, they are across the hall. The center will have board-certified specialists in orthopedics, cardiology, and ophthalmology. And there is an urologist on the second floor.
Medical services like MRIs, CT scans, and X-rays will be done at Nashville General. “You just go in and get it. And then you’re out,” he said.
Webb said the new center is a primary care center, an ambulatory clinic, not an urgent care center. He said Nashville General’s medical model has not changed. It’s just getting a larger footprint. “If you break your arm you go to an emergency room,” he said. “And then we’ll bring you back here for your follow-up.”
Two primary care doctors, Dr. Monica Davis and Dr. Taura Long, will see patients in five exam rooms on one side of the clinic. Specialists will see patients in five exam rooms on the other side. The Frist Clinic on Patterson St. pioneered multi-specialty family healthcare, which offers primary care and internal medicine specialties under the same roof.
“It’s a one-stop shop, I like having access to specialists nearby. If I have a question or if I have a patient who needs to be seen they can see them quickly,” said Davis.
Davis said she and Long can each see 20 patients a day. The clinic is open M-F, 8:30 am-4:30 pm. The midtown location is convenient and there is ample surface parking under and around the three-story brick building on 20thand Charlotte Ave. The center is on the first floor.Hospital officials hope the healthcare center will become the primary care medical home of Metro employees.
“We’re hoping we have Metro employees because we can provide care for them inexpensively,” Davis said. Because the clinic is owned and operated by Nashville General Hospital, Metro employees do not have to make a co-pay to be seen by a doctor.
