HISTORY OF NORTH MISSISSIPPI HOSPICE
North Mississippi Hospice
A Brief History
North Mississippi Hospice
North Mississippi Hospice was founded by Michele McCay in Oxford October, 2002. Within a short time, Michele realized the opportunity to extend quality hospice care to the Southaven area and as a result purchased Hospice Ministries during 2007. Under Michele’s direction, North Mississippi Hospice garnered a reputation of being the home town hospice- providing the best palliative care in the area. Michele McCay is the ‘‘face of hospice’’ in northern Mississippi. Her passion for hospice flows into her Hospice articles published in the local newspaper and is felt in her numerous speaking engagements. Due to their shared values and the desire to have a greater impact through working together, Gary Cooper and Dr. Troy Gamble of Winyah Community Hospice Care in South Carolina partnered with Michele in 2008. North Mississippi Hospice is poised to expand its services to a wider area- providing a greater opportunity to assist families caring for their loved ones.
Gary Cooper and Dr. Troy Gamble owned and operated Winyah Community Hospice Care, a South Carolina Hospice provider they founded in 2005. Both Gary and Troy understand the critical importance of building and maintaining the trust of referral sources by upholding a standard of service that exceeds other providers. Because of this, they assembled a clinical team that systematically reviewed each patient’s progress ensuring they met the clinical standards for hospice appropriateness as well as exceeding the industry’s standard of care. As a result, Winyah enjoyed a solid reputation for both patient care and clinical compliance. This reputation enabled Winyah to grow from its original location in Florence to providing care for three hundred-fifty patients in nine locations.
The ideals shared by Gary, Troy, and Michele were originally modeled by Gary’s father; the late Charles F. Cooper Sr. Charles was a healthcare provider himself for over forty years and left a legacy of values to Gary and Troy. These values are reflected in North Mississippi Hospice’s culture.
- Take care of your patients
- Take care of your employees
- Make good business decisions
Gary, Troy, and Michele foster these same values by hiring individuals into their hospice family who they see as possessing the same principles. Their employees are talented, compassionate individuals empowered to provide the best patient care.
Biographical Summaries
Gary Cooper is the President of North Mississippi Hospice. His experience in the health care industry started early. Gary’s family has been involved in South Carolina health care for over forty years. It was this early exposure and subsequent hands-on experience in establishing relationships built upon integrity that he has utilized to build successful business models.
Gary graduated from Wofford College with a BS in Economics and went on to acquire his Masters of Health Care Administration from the University of South Carolina. Gary’s expertise gives NMH the ability to obtain new customer relationships while ensuring current customers are receiving the services they were promised.
Gary co-founded and served as the CEO of Winyah Community Hospice Care, a SC provider of hospice care from 2005-2009. As a result of the desire of one partner desiring to retire, Winyah Community Hospice Care was sold to Amedisys Inc, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana based national provider of home health and hospice.
Troy Gamble is the Chief Medical Director of North Mississippi Hospice. Dr. Gamble is also a graduate of Wofford College. He is a family practice physician and director of CMA Hospitalists at Carolinas Hospital in Florence, SC. He is the former chairman of the board of directors for the Palmetto Health Alliance and has been caring for hospice patients since 1985.
Troy co-founded Winyah Community Hospice Care and served as their State Medical Director. Troy now continues to serve in this role post sale for Amedisys Inc.
Michele McCay is the Administrator of North Mississippi Hospice. She graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a BSN in 1985 and Millsaps College with a Masters in Business Administration in 1993. Michele founded the company in 2002 and led the expansion to a second location in 2007. In five years as a hospice owner, her agency provided quality end of life care to over 700 patients throughout 17 counties in Mississippi.
Michele’s unique combination of business savvy, clinical knowledge, and passion for patient care has provided North Mississippi Hospice with its current opportunity to be the best Hospice in the area and grow the number of patients and families it serves.
