HJAR May/Jun 2020

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS I  MAY / JUN 2020 59 For weekly eNews updates and to read the journal online, visit HealthcareJournalAR.com who graduate in our state, but do not have the opportunity to match with a residency in Arkansas. This, combined with a need for more primary care physicians throughout our state, will allow us to increase health care access by producing excep- tionally trained physicians who we hope will stay in Arkansas and provide care.” “Our team is wholeheartedly committed to pre- paring each resident for a successful and enjoy- able life as a family physician,” said Sarah Rob- ertson, MD, Family Medicine Residency Program director. “The goal of our program is to equip future family physicians with the knowledge, expe- rience, and skills necessary to provide exemplary patient care and positively impact the full spec- trum of family practice healthcare delivery.” Residents will learn to practice as effective mem- bers of the healthcare system through multi-disci- plinary team-based care within the inpatient and ambulatory settings. The program will be based in the Conway Regional Medical Center, the Conway Medical Group, and Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Four residents will have the opportunity to match with Conway Regional through the Resi- dency Matching Program in March of 2020 and will begin their first day of residency on July 1, 2020. Accreditation for the Family Medicine Resi- dency program was received through a rigorous process under the Accreditation Council for Grad- uate Medical Education. This process included evaluations of the health system as well as pro- gram personnel, faculty, institutional safety and quality metrics, curriculum, the learning and work- ing environment, and more. The organization also conducted an onsite interview from the ACGME as part of the process for final approval. The accreditation process was led by Matt Troup, president and CEO; Rebekah Flincher, des- ignated institutional officer; Sarah Robertson, MD, Family Medicine Program director; Darren Free- man, MD, and Jeremiah Keng, DO, core faculty; and Megan Stelting, Family Medicine Residency Program coordinator. UAMS Provides COVID-19 Screening to Helena, Delta Residents As the van carrying UAMS healthcare profes- sionals arrived in Helena early April 2, residents of Helena and the surrounding Delta region were already lining up in their vehicles to receive the drive-through COVID-19 evaluation UAMS was about to provide. By 10 a.m., the team from the main campus in Little Rock and from UAMS East Family Medical Center in Helena were in place as the first patients rolled into the covered service bays of the old John Deere dealership being put into service for the four-hour outreach effort. When the evaluations concluded in Helena, the UAMS team had screened more than 120 patients. “I thought it was absolutely spectacular,” said Jennifer Hunt, MD, chair of the UAMS Depart- ment of Pathology, who helped plan the outreach effort and lead it on site. “I was thrilled. It went so well. Going in, we didn’t know what the volume would be. I think we hit exactly the right target. No one was turned away, and we were busy the whole time. We were concerned whether we could pull it off logistically, and I think it went flawlessly. It also showed me the team could be adaptable and adjust quickly to new challenges.” As residents in their cars and trucks waited in line at the former dealership, they were asked to phone the call center at UAMS in Little Rock to register and get entered into the computer sys- tem, if they weren’t already a UAMS patient. Northwest Health Opens New Emergency Department in Fayetteville Northwest Health opened a new emergency department, located at 1255 S. Shiloh Dr. in Fay- etteville. Once the site of the Clarion Hotel, the new 24/7 emergency department represents an investment of approximately $9.5 million, accord- ing to Denten Park, market CEO for Northwest Health. The 10,300 square-foot facility houses advanced technology, including a CT scanner. The 24/7 emergency department is an extension of services for Northwest Health, operating as a department of Siloam Springs Regional Hospital which makes it designated as a Level IV trauma center through the Arkansas Department of Health. Dr. Danelle Richards serves as medical director for emergency services for Northwest Health while Dr. Joe Olivi serves as medical director of trauma services. Tiffany Means, DNP, MHA, CENP, is the department director for emergency services. “We’re excited to expand our presence in the community of Fayetteville and to provide service closer to a number of other cities south of Fay- etteville, including Farmington, Prairie Grove, West Fork, Elkins, and Lincoln,” said Park. “We are pleased to be able to provide faster access to emergency care for more people.” Arkansas Heart Hospital Receives CMS Five-Star Overall Quality Hospital Rating Arkansas Heart Hospital has once again been awarded the prestigious Five-Star Overall Hospital rating by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Arkansas Heart Hospital is one of 405 hospitals nationwide to receive this distinction and is the only hospital in the state to receive it for two consecutive years. The hospital has also been named one of the nation’s top 22 patient-recom- mended hospitals, one of only two in Arkansas. “We are honored by these designations,” said Dr. Bruce Murphy, CEO of Arkansas Heart Hos- pital. “We strive to treat our patients like fam- ily from the moment they walk in the door. This distinction is not possible without the dedica- tion, commitment, and hard work of our staff and physicians. Every department, every employee is essential to our organization. Our mission is to provide extraordinary service, and this honor con- firms that commitment.” CMS provides the rankings for hospitals across the country. The figures to determine top patient- recommended hospitals come from CMS’ Hos- pital Compare website and represent HCAHPS scores collected from April 2018 through March 2019. The HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assess- ment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) sur- vey is the first national, standardized, publicly reported survey of patients’ perspectives of hos- pital care. HCAHPS (pronounced “H-caps”) is a survey instrument and data collection methodol- ogy for measuring patients’ perceptions of their hospital experience. While many hospitals have collected informa- tion on patient satisfaction for their own internal use, until HCAHPS, there was no national stan- dard for collecting and publicly reporting informa- tion about patient experience of care that allowed valid comparisons to be made across hospitals