Atrium Health Floyd has a long relationship with schools in the communities it serves. For more than a decade, it has provided athletic trainers to area high school teams – at no cost to the schools.

In 2016, the Corporate Health team assumed management of the school nurse programs in Rome City and Floyd County schools. That effort was later expanded to Polk County schools, and Floyd now provides access to on-campus care to more than 24,000 students.

More recently, Atrium Health Floyd signed agreements to be the Official Health Care Provider for with Rome City, Floyd County, Polk County, Chattooga County, Darlington and Trion City schools, adding even more value to the services already provided. These include close working relationships with college and career academies and scholarship opportunities for students, in addition to support on career days, health education and volunteer opportunities.

Now, that relationship has extended even further in Chattooga County and Trion City schools with a donation that is helping teachers and students with technology.

Atrium Health Floyd purchased approximately 160 computer monitors to help train teammates to use a new electronic medical record system. Once those monitors were no longer needed, the Information Technology team looked at options for what to do with these surplus resources.

While reselling them was an option, the team determined Floyd would not recoup much money from the sale. A brainstorming session among teammates working on the project resulted in a novel idea – ask school partners if they could use the monitors.

Chattooga County and Trion City schools were Atrium Health Floyd's newest partners, so the team reached out to the superintendents and Information Technology directors in those systems. Yes, they could use the monitors. They would enhance teacher work and student experience.

Marc Long, Information Services; Chris Butler; Corporate Health; Will Byington, Community Engagement; and Neil Gordon, Plant Facilities, worked together to gather the monitors and deliver them to the school districts.

The schools were extremely thankful, Byington said, telling the team the donation would save money and benefit teachers.

Patrick Clifton, technology director for Chattooga County Schools, said many of the monitors were used to replace aging monitors in elementary school classrooms, saving the school system about $250 per monitor to replace.

This was a huge team effort involving several Atrium Health Floyd departments, Byington said, and the result is that Atrium Health Floyd is directly helping students and teachers in the classroom, which aligns perfectly with its mission.

In donating those monitors, Atrium Health Floyd is elevating hope in the lives of the students who, in the not-too-distant future, will be business owners, teachers, government leaders and health care teammates, improving health, elevating hope and advancing healing – for all.