Arkansas Children's set to open new pediatric center

Credit: Arkansas Children's

Arkansas Children's said the Arkansas Children's Northwest hospital will officially open its doors soon. 

Children's hospitals are proving to be trail blazers in the push to value-based care and excellent benchmark institutions for other providers grappling with the transition and doing so in a shifting healthcare landscape where large capital projects are slowly becoming less and less common. Some health systems are also turning to microhospitals as a means to expand their footprint without taking on a large capital projects that will require multiple donations or investments.

[Also: Tiny houses come to healthcare: Allegheny Health Network offers peek at first microhospital]

"When it opens in the coming weeks, the facility will provide right-sized pediatric inpatient, outpatient and emergency services to the more than 200,000 children who live in northwest Arkansas," the system said. And it will be the first children's hospital in the area. 

Arkansas Children's Northwest is on a 37 acre campus in Springdale, the fourth largest city in the state. The 233,613 square-foot hospital has 24 inpatient beds, a 24-hour pediatric Emergency Department, a state-of-the-art pediatric surgery unit with 5 operating rooms, an outpatient clinic with 30 exam rooms supporting more than 20 subspecialty areas and a general pediatric clinic, ancillary and diagnostic services such as child-life social work and pastoral care programs and outdoor gardens, nature trails and interactive features designed specifically for children.

The clinic is already open and taking patients. But due to state licensing and certification processes, the Emergency Department and inpatient unit will open to the public in the coming weeks. 

Arkansas Children's said it is using a gift of $8 million to from the Willard & Pat Walker Charitable Foundation to build the new pediatric center. 

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