Mercy Northwest Arkansas of Rogers, Ark., said it will invest about $247 million over five years in its region. Mercy said the initiative is in response to significant population growth in Northwest Arkansas. The population was about 210,000 in 1990. Currently it is about 500,000.
Photo credit: Marc F. Henning
A crowd gathers April 27 for Mercy Northwest Arkansas' announcement of its $247 million expansion plans.
Construction will begin late this year or early next on a patient tower that will increase the capacity of Rogers' Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas to about 360 beds, from 200. The tower will open in 2019.
Mercy said it will recruit physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses and other staff and expects to add about 1,000 jobs in the region by 2026. Among the recruits will be specialists to practice in its new hospital tower and clinics. According to information from Mercy, the additional specialists will enable it to reduce wait times for appointments and to improve access to services.
Heart and vascular and women's and children's services are some of the specialty areas targeted for improvement.
The Mercy region also will add a total of seven primary care and specialty clinics in Arkansas' Benton and Washington Counties. Mercy expects to complete two of these clinics by summer 2018. The completion timing for the remaining clinics has yet to be determined.
Also as part of the investment, Mercy Northwest Arkansas is partnering with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks on a community internal medicine residency program. Five university residents will train at the Mercy hospital, and three at the Veterans system in Fayetteville, Ark. The three-year residencies begin this month. According to an informational brochure on the program, "Once the program is fully matured, there will be eight residents in each of the three years of training, totaling 24 residents."