Healthcare

Ballad Health was created in 2018 by a merger of the two dominant health systems in the Appalachian Highlands, Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System. The joining created one of the top 50 largest health systems in the nation with 21 hospitals, 13,800 employees, 800 affiliated physicians and a network of urgent care centers. The Johnson City Medical Center, one of Ballad’s flagship hospitals, opened in 1980. It originally had five floors, and two more floors were added through the years as its services increased, along with surgery and heart centers and Niswonger Children’s Hospital, which houses a state-of-the-art birthing center and a neonatal intensive care unit.

Now, the Johnson City Medical Center is a 445-bed regional tertiary referral center for the entire service area and one of five Level 1 Trauma Centers in the state of Tennessee.

State of Franklin Healthcare Associates (SOFHA) is a physician-led, employee-owned multi-specialty primary care group founded in 1998.

SOFHA’s integrated healthcare delivery includes primary and specialty care physician practices. In addition, they have outpatient care sites and homecare services including an acute care clinic, diabetes clinic, echo-cardiograms, clinical laboratory services, physical therapy, women’s physical therapy, a Sleep Center, Comprehensive Breast Center, and Imaging Center. State of Franklin Healthcare Associates aims to provide outstanding levels of access and convenience for patients and their families.

The Veterans Affairs hospital at Johnson City got its start in 1903 as the Mountain Branch of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, a facility intended to care for Union veterans of the Civil War. The 250-acre campus includes the Mountain Home National Cemetery and the James H. Quillen VA Medical Center, which houses 114 hospital beds, a 120-bed community living center, and a 170-bed domiciliary. The center cares for 170,000 Veterans in a 41-county area of Northeast Tennessee, Western Virginia, and Southern Kentucky. The VA Medical Center, through affiliations with East Tennessee State University is a teaching hospital and research center working to improve care for the country’s veterans. Recently, the hospital was rated among 10 Tennessee hospitals receiving the highest marks for nurse-to-patient communication and the only hospital in the state to receive a five-star rating from Becker’s Hospital Review’s list of the best hospitals for patient experience. For more information, visit www.mountainhome.va.gov

Founded in 1957, Frontier Health is a 501(c)3 organization offering mental health and substance abuse treatment for residents in the Appalachian Highlands. The organization has more than 60 professionally staffed facilities located in 12 counties throughout Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia. For more information, visit www.frontierhealth.org