CARTI opens new surgery center in Little Rock

Cancer care provider CARTI opened its new 57,000 square foot surgery center on Friday (June 9) at its campus in midtown Little Rock.

The new surgery center includes eight private overnight rooms, 12 recovery rooms, 14 pre- and post-op rooms and six large operating rooms, two of which have da Vinci Robotic-Assisted Technology. The center also features an interventional radiology suite, a dedicated cystoscopy room for urology procedures and a minor procedure room.

“By offering leading-edge surgical care within our statewide network, the CARTI Surgery Center will enhance the patient experience, expedite recoveries and improve outcomes. It represents the future of cancer care and CARTI’s vision to be the cancer treatment destination,” said CEO Adam Head, who appeared on this week’s edition of Talk Business & Politics.

Friday’s dedication ceremony included Gov. Sarah Sanders, U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock, and Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott, Jr.

The facility was designed by Cromwell Architects Engineers and built by Kinco Constructors. It is expected to create up to 80 new jobs, bringing CARTI’s total employment in the state to more than 900 at 18 locations.

CARTI has been providing surgical services, but through other hospitals. Head said the new surgery center will elevate the level of cancer care his nonprofit can provide.

“This is really 47 years in the making,” he said. “In all that time, we’ve never had onsite surgery, even though we’ve really tried to follow our mission and expand to other areas. So we’ve spent the last several years paying attention to really trying to provide accessible and trusted cancer care where patients live, making it more accessible in Arkansas than ever before. And we didn’t have surgery in that mix.”

“As patients now have been asking about it more than ever with our expanded access, our surgeons working with our leadership team, you know, said, ‘Why not?’ And so we started to lean into that and you know, here we are,” Head added.

Head said CARTI built the surgery center for the future. He anticipates that with technological advancements in cancer care, the building, personnel, business model and services will be able to adapt.

“There are opportunities that exist within these walls that we haven’t even seen yet. Some of the robotic technology that we have combined with the capabilities we have after a patient has had their surgery, the way that care is paid for reimbursement, the way our whole insurance system is set up today federally, as that continues to evolve as care overall, looking at this nationwide, needs to continue to evolve and look at more efficient ways to deliver that care,” he said.

“How can care be provided with the same potential outcome or even better because of shorter stays and you want to be able to get out of a care environment, be able to go back home, but doing so in a cost-efficient setting, one that’s cheaper for insurance, cheaper on the individual? That is available now.

“It feels risky to step out into it, but with how care has been evolving and being able to treat diagnoses that typically were always done in a traditional hospital setting and now being able to do that here, we believe that this was the time to lean into that. So to answer your question, we don’t believe this is just set up for today. We believe that this facility is going to continue to be relevant in the years to come as care continues to evolve,” Head said.

You can watch his full interview in the video below.