Serving the area since 1950, Cookeville Regional has grown to be the region’s health care provider of choice and is the flagship hospital for the Cookeville Regional Health System that also includes Cumberland River Hospital and Cookeville Regional Medical Group.

Cookeville Regional Medical Center is a progressive 247-bed regional referral center serving more than 350,000 residents in the Upper Cumberland region of middle Tennessee.  With over 200 physicians in 40 different medical and surgical specialties, Cookeville Regional offers patients here the same kind of care that they could expect in a larger metropolitan area including specialty care such as cardiology, electrophysiology, cardiac and thoracic surgery, vascular surgery, pulmonology, cancer treatment, orthopedics, physical rehabilitation and neurosurgery. The medical center’s Rehabilitation Center is located within a block of the hospital and includes both outpatient services and a 20-bed inpatient unit. Cookeville Regional also houses a 32-bed behavioral health hospital owned and operated by Ten Broeck Tennessee. 

In 2009 Cookeville Regional opened the new 228,000 square-foot, six-floor north patient tower that included  a new 33,000 square-foot cancer center (including tomotherapy), a 30-bed Intensive Care Unit, a cardiac care/step down unit, a post-surgical unit, a medical/oncology unit, family respite areas and an atrium lobby. With the construction of the North Patient Tower, the medical center now offers all private patient rooms throughout the facility. Within in the last couple of years, the medical center has completed expansions of its emergency department to include 37 beds and its surgery department to include 16 state-of-the-art OR suites. Recent construction has included a new hospital pharmacy department as well as a new central sterile department. Cookeville Regional has added advanced wound care services to its list of services with opening of the Advanced Wound Care Center, offering advanced wound care specialists providing state-of-the-art wound treatment therapies including Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy.

Cookeville Regional has continually invested in state-of-the-art technology. The Cancer Center offers tomotherapy and is the only facility in the state to offer this technology for the treatment of cancer patients. The Outpatient Imaging Center is the first in the region to offer 3T MRI, and the Surgery Department has upgraded its daVinci robotic surgery system to the daVinci Si™ Surgical System. It is one of only six in Tennessee equipped with the latest in robotic surgery technology. As a matter of fact, Cookeville Regional was the first hospital in Tennessee to offer robotic surgery in five specialties (gynecology, urology, cardiothoracic surgery, general surgery and ENT surgery).

Cookeville Regional is proud to spearhead an effort in the region around the treatment of heart attack patients that is ahead of most other communities in the nation. The cardiologists have worked diligently with area EMS teams (county-owned services) on a protocol they call “Code STEMI” that allows an EMS team to diagnose a STEMI heart attack in the field, and thereby initiate the “Code STEMI” protocol. When initiated, the “Code STEMI” protocol calls for the cardiac catheterization team and interventional cardiologist to be waiting and ready to treat as soon as the patient arrives. With this process in place the Heart and Vascular Center has achieved an average of 43 minutes for their door-to-balloon time – well below the recognized gold standard of 90 minutes.

Cookeville Regional has been named one of the 100 Great Community Hospitals by Becker’s Hospital Review two years in a row. 

Paul Korth, Chief Executive Officer, Cookeville Regional Medical Center, Cookeville, TN

With over twenty six years’ experience in healthcare, Paul Korth became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Cookeville Regional Medical Center in February of 2013. In addition to his CEO role, he also serves as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), a position he has held for the past thirteen years.  Prior to joining the staff at Cookeville Regional in May 1999, he was at Clay County Hospital as the CFO for four years and then Livingston Regional Hospital for eight years.  

At Cookeville Regional Mr. Korth has achieved many significant milestones in his career including a key role in establishing and maintaining the recent affiliation agreement with Vanderbilt Medical Center.  He is responsible for managing all aspects of the 247-bed regional referral facility as well as the Cookeville Regional Health System that includes not only Cookeville Regional Medical Center but also Cookeville Regional Medical Group, the CRMC Foundation and Cumberland River Hospital.