Northwest Arkansas' major health systems are planting flags on new ground and overlapping coverage areas more than ever, giving residents more choices even in small towns.
Mercy Northwest Arkansas, for example, plans to open its second clinic in Washington County in the next year or two and broke ground for a Pea Ridge primary care clinic earlier this month. Northwest Health added its first hospital in Fayetteville after absorbing Physician's Specialty Hospital last year. And Fayetteville-based Washington Regional Medical Center has added clinics in Lowell, Farmington, Springdale and Johnson since 2010.
"We just think we can be more involved and get more of the day-to-day care out to the patients to make it more convenient for them," Steve Goss, Mercy Clinic president, said in February. "We're anxious to have a kind of hub and spoke model, a distributive model."
Justin Murray, his wife and their 1-year-old son go to Mercy's family medicine clinic that opened in 2014 near their apartment in Centerton. The location is convenient and the care is good, he said. The biggest problem is its popularity.
"Sometimes it's OK, but most of the time it's pretty crowded," he said, which can mean longer waits.
Brett Beaudry, who goes to the clinic all the way from Siloam Springs for allergies and help with his mental health, said the extra time nurses and doctors there spend getting to know their patients is worth the wait. He and Murray praised Celeste Williams, an advanced practice nurse, in particular, with Beaudry calling her "a saint."
"A physician who does their job is going to be there as a human being who cares about you as a person," Beaudry said. "I kind of wish they had one (location) in Siloam Springs."
Mercy's Centerton and Pea Ridge clinics are its first in Benton and Washington counties outside the main cities along the Interstate 49 corridor. Northwest Health added its own Centerton clinics in 2011 and 2013 and includes Siloam Springs Regional Hospital, while Washington Regional has offered family, cardiac and diabetes services in Farmington since 2011.
Hospital leaders point to rising numbers of people who make even small towns worthwhile for the systems and need more health care wherever they live. Washington Regional's Larry Shackelford, senior vice president of outreach services, said the system has also grown into wherever physicians who want to join the system practice, as happened with Farmington.
"Washington Regional has practices in locations that are in our primary service area, but these locations often have practice demographics that include a large Medicare/Medicaid population that makes the economics of sustaining a private practice difficult," he wrote in an email.
Smaller networks of physicians also have settled across the region. The low-cost Community Clinic, which charges fees on a sliding scale and takes patients regardless of ability to pay, started in Springdale and now has clinics or public school offshoots from Rogers to Lincoln and Prairie Grove. Medical Associates of Northwest Arkansas, a physician-owned network of doctors, began in Fayetteville and now stretches from Bentonville to Elkins.
Besides breaking new ground, the systems also are beefing up current locations' services and offerings, bringing on specialists in neurology, neonatal services and other fields.
Washington Regional, for example, opened a five-story Women and Infants Center late last year for routine and urgent care of both. Northwest's Willow Creek Women's Hospital in February became the first in Arkansas to be designated "baby-friendly" by the World Health Organization and UNICEF for encouraging breastfeeding, emphasizing more physical contact between baby and mother and making other changes.
Mercy has committed to adding 1,000 jobs in the next two or so years across its system and building or expanding facilities. The hospital is building a seven-story patient tower that would add 150 beds. It has a Springdale clinic with a physician and nurse, but the new location near the intersection of I-49 and Elm Springs Road could comprise two stories with several times as many health care providers, Goss said. It would most likely house primary care with some specialties and an emergency room.
A mix of spread-out locations and major central spots for more complex care helps the system meet the needs of people of all ages and healthiness, Goss added.
"We continue to evaluate what services currently require patients to leave the community and how can we help fill the gap," Northwest CEO Sharif Omar wrote in an email, adding the system is focusing its efforts in the near-term on preventative care.
More health care providers is only good news with a growing and aging population, said Rob Smith, communications and policy director for the private Northwest Arkansas Council, which has set a goal to make the two counties a health care destination for the surrounding area.
"We absolutely see a need for more people of medical talent, doctors, nurses, anethesiologists, all of these things," he said. "We're all going to need more of that particular skill."
NW Business on 03/26/2017