Health Rivalries Give Birth to New Centers

The next wave of competition among northwest Arkansas health care providers seems to center on care for women and children.

In late September, Northwest Health System announced work would begin immediately on a neonatal nursery for babies in need of acute care. Similar facilities are found no closer than Little Rock or Tulsa, and the nursery, which is being equipped at a cost of about $600,000, is expected to open Nov. 1 at the system’s Springdale campus.

In July, Washington Regional Medical System said it would build in Fayetteville’s North Hills Medical Park a $10 million women’s and children’s center. The 50,000-SF center is the first phase of the hospital’s building plans for the medical park.

Also, Care Select Group, the Dallas-based company that manages two Washington County women’s clinics, is exploring – with the physicians of those clinics – the possibility of building a women’s center. Although no decision has been made, the group has scouted possible locations in Washington County.

In addition, Northwest Health already is involved in a $2 million project that will bring obstetrics back to Bates Medical Center later this year. When a new hospital is built there, as Quorum Health Corp. has pledged, the unit will move to the facility.

The reason for this attention is part of a trend, says one person in the industry.

“One of the biggest trends in obstetrics is women’s health care centers that coordinate obstetric and gynecological care,” says Howard Flushman, senior vice president for Care Select Group, the company that manages Parkhill Clinic for Women in Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas OB-GYN Associates in Springdale.

Greg Stock, chief executive officer of the Northwest system, says the sophisticated nursery his group is installing isn’t itself expected to be a money-maker.

In fact, the kind of acute care that a Level III neonatal nursery provides is extremely expensive as is the commitment to equip such a facility.

But, in addition to the issues of providing care locally, there’s a possible longer-term benefit, Stock says.

“Mothers make the decisions about where their families are going to get health care. Studies have shown they do make these decisions,” he says.

Northwest officials hope that families whose infants are cared for in its facilities will form an attachment to that system. In later years, as those families require other types of care, they may return to Northwest for treatment.

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Rising Birth Rate

Some of the attention on women’s and children’s health care stems from the growing population and the related rising birth rate.

Two years ago, when Care Select first began looking at the northwest Arkansas market, Flushman says, 22 obstetrician-gynecologists were practicing in the two-county area. Generally, one OB-GYN is needed for every 11,000 people in the population, he adds.

Using population projections, both for size and age, Flushman’s group predicted the need for 40 obstetricians in the region by the year 2005.

He says Northwest’s new neonatal nursery may be a good recruiting tool.

“As far as attracting physicians into the community, sure, it has its appeal,” Flushman says.

Already Northwest has recruited at least one physician as the result of its new nursery. Dr. Bruce Pichoff II will be the center’s medical director. Pichoff, who has worked in neonatal medicine and research in various places around the world, is being touted as the area’s first neonatologist, a physician who specializes in the care of premature infants.

But perhaps no one was happier with Northwest’s announcement than Dr. Bruce Brown, a physician who practices with NWA OB-GYN Associates in Springdale. Brown called the decision to go forth “a leap of faith.”

“This is not a popular area for hospitals because it’s very costly,” Brown said at the press conference. But, the need is “desperate” and the availability of such facilities “puts people first.”

Stock, Northwest’s CEO, estimated that about 5,000 babies are born each year in the hospital system’s market area and about 3-5 percent of those babies need acute care of the sort Northwest expects to provide in its new nursery.

Northwest delivers about 1,300 babies annually – up from 300 just five years ago – while St. Mary-Rogers Hospital has about 1,200 deliveries each year. Washington Regional in Fayetteville is still the market leader with about 2,000 deliveries annually.

Northwest hopes to get a greater share of the market with its new facilities at Bates Medical Center in Bentonville.

Quorum Health, which expects to close on its purchase of the Northwest system later this year, recently said it would replace the existing Bates hospital with a new facility.

Stock acknowledges that building an obstetrics unit that will be used for only a short time could seem an unnecessary expense.

But, he says, “we felt it was critical to get something done at Bates … and we marched ahead and did it.”