Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
NWA hospital wraps up first year
Kids get care closer to home; other facilities close pediatric units
SPRINGDALE — Her doctor didn’t know what was causing the pain throughout Sarah Hollingsworth’s body the summer after fourth grade, but he ruled out growing pains.
“He said, ‘Michael, there is something going on here that doesn’t make sense. I want you to take her to Children’s down in Little Rock,’” said Michael Hollingsworth, Sarah’s dad.
A few months and several hospital visits later, Sarah was diagnosed with leukemia in September 2017 at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock.
Hollingsworth drove 220 miles from Hiwasse to Little Rock once a week for a year for Sarah’s treatment. She would be too sick to go home sometimes and would have to stay at the hospital for weeks, and her dad would stay with her. Hollingsworth retired early from his job as a music instructor.
Then, Arkansas Children’s Northwest opened in February 2018 in Springdale, and Sarah was treated 30 miles from home. Her cancer is in remission.
The only hospital in Northwest Arkansas specifically for children recently wrapped up its first year. The hospital sees patients up to 21 years old.
“We’re here for anything and everything,” said Trisha Montague, senior vice president and administrator of the hospital.
Arkansas Children’s Northwest treats kids for
common childhood ailments such as broken bones or respiratory illnesses and for more serious diseases such as cancer. Children can also see one of three primary care physicians for routine checkups, Montague said.
“In the work that we did leading up to opening this hospital, we did a lot of planning and recruiting to be able to have certain pediatric subspecialties at this hospital and hired full-time physicians within those subspecialties to live here, be a part of this community,” she said.
Arkansas Children’s Northwest has an oncologist; a cardiologist; an ear, nose and throat surgeon; an orthopedic surgeon; and three pediatric anesthesiologists. It recently hired an endocrinologist who will start this summer, Montague said. Endocrinologists treat hormone-related problems spanning from diabetes and thyroid conditions to hormonal imbalances related to puberty and development.
A children’s hospital addresses several issues most hospitals don’t, Montague said.
The hospital has to have every size of supplies and equipment because an oxygen mask for an infant is so much smaller than one for a 200-pound teen athlete, for example.
“There are eight different sizes of those, and we have to have all of them,” Montague said.
“Children really are very different from adults, not just in their size, but their physiology is different also,” she said. “So a pediatric anesthesiologist brings a level of expertise and knowledge and level of understanding about putting children to sleep.”
Amy Knight, chief operating officer at the Children’s Hospital Association, said anesthesiologists who normally put adults to sleep are more likely to make a mistake when putting a child to sleep than a pediatric anesthesiologist. Knight said most regular hospitals don’t hire pediatric specialists because it’s too expensive to keep them on full-time when there aren’t enough child patients to justify the cost. It’s more beneficial for a child to see a cardiologist who always operates on children than one who may only see a child every 20th patient, she said.
Knight said she has seen more hospitals like Arkansas Children’s in Little Rock focusing on a community by expanding where there is population growth rather than expecting people to travel for health care. Twenty years ago, that likely wouldn’t have been the case, she said.
“We’re in a good place in trends right now,” Knight said.
She added having an established hospital with years of experience caring for children give some oversight to a new hospital is beneficial. Arkansas Children’s Hospital opened in 1912 as Arkansas Children’s Home Society, a safe haven for orphaned children.
Hospitals designed for children often have an entirely different environment, Knight said. Kids are resilient, and there’s usually hope they will get better. The environment is generally more nurturing.
“You can’t take care of a child without taking care of the whole family,” she said.
Arkansas Children’s Northwest has child life specialists trained to understand the psychological effects of being sick or having to stay in a hospital. The specialists meet with the children to help them understand what to expect from surgery or treatment.
“It’s actually possible with children to make their hospital experience something that they enjoy or think is fun and is not traumatic for them, and child life specialists are key,” Montague said.
Hollingsworth said the specialists played board games with Sarah while she stayed in the hospital and brought her art supplies after learning she likes to draw.
The specialists also meet with the patients’ parents.
“Your patient is not just the child. Your patient is the whole family,” Montague said.
The hospital has had a positive economic impact in the region, said Bill Rogers, vice president of communications and special projects for the Springdale Chamber of Commerce.
About 350 people work for the hospital, Montague said.
Rogers said when people travel here to go to the hospital, they are likely to eat at restaurants, stay in hotels and go to pharmacies. That means more sales tax money for the city.
The hospital contributes to the growing health care industry in Springdale, he said, noting a Mercy multidisciplinary clinic and a Highlands Oncology Clinic are under construction about 2 miles away from Children’s.
Some shifts in children’s health care in the region have come along with the opening of Children’s.
Northwest Health closed its eight-bed pediatric unit at its Bentonville medical center in May 2017. More than a year later, Washington Regional Medical Center closed its 20-bed pediatric unit.
“With the opening of Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Northwest Arkansas, our daily inpatient census had fallen to an average of less than one child per day. As we no longer maintained the pediatric inpatient volumes necessary to attract and retain nurses and staff with those special skills, we found it no longer possible to provide the level of high-quality care to our pediatric inpatients that our mission demands. By closing the pediatric inpatient unit, we were able to offer much needed expansion of services/space for our gynecology and medical/surgical patients,” said Natalie Hardin, spokeswoman for Washington Regional.
Washington Regional’s inpatient care focuses on patients 16 and older, with exceptions such as care for pregnant patients younger than 16, patients younger than 16 who cannot be stabilized or in cases where transportation options are unavailable. The hospital continues to perform routine pediatric outpatient surgery and other procedures that don’t require inpatient care, she said.
Hardin said the medical system has 40 family medicine providers — physicians and mid-level providers — who care for adults and children of all ages at clinics throughout Northwest Arkansas.
Washington Regional in 2016 opened its Women and Infants Center, which includes a 34-bed neonatal intensive care unit. Mercy Hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit will expand from 10 beds to 19 beds this fall, said Jennifer Cook, spokeswoman. Northwest Health’s Willow Creek Women’s Hospital in Springdale has a 24-bed neonatal intensive care unit. Children’s Northwest doesn’t have a neonatal intensive care unit.
Northwest Health is recruiting more pediatricians, said Beth Bradfield Wright, spokeswoman.
“We continue to offer advanced surgical procedures to pediatric patients in addition to providing extensive access to primary care through our family practice and pediatric providers as well as urgent and emergency care through our hospital emergency departments and urgent care centers,” she said in an email.
Likewise, Mercy has pediatric providers in Bella Vista, Lowell and at two practices in Bentonville and will add a fifth pediatrics practice when the new clinic opens in the fall in Springdale, Cook said.