Jellico (Tenn.) Regional Hospital is one step closer to reopening after the Jellico Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted 3-2 to install Community Hospital Management LLC as the new operator of the city's hospital, the LaFollette Press reported Aug. 20.
CHM CEO Kim Haverly told the publication she hopes to reopen Jellico Regional as a critical access hospital by January, but the timeline will depend on CMS' credentialing process.
A previous motion to give control of the hospital's operations to Jamestown, Tenn.-based Phoenix Rural Health failed after a 2-3 vote. PRH was founded in 2019 to save struggling rural hospitals and had planned to reopen Jellico Regional as a rural emergency hospital.
"We get the Becker's Hospital Review newsletter sent to us almost daily and Tennessee is the second-largest state in the country for rural hospital closures," Ms. Haverly told the LaFollette Press. "When we saw that Jellico was closing back in March, we knew that we needed to be an advocate for the community. We've been pursuing it pretty heavily since May."
CHM plans to survey residents in the community to see what type of services they would like to have at the hospital.
Becker's has reached out to the hospital's administrators and the mayor's office and will update this story as more information becomes available.