HJLR Mar/Apr 2019

dialogue 12 MAR / APR 2019 I  Healthcare Journal of little rock   Chief Editor Smith W. Hartley How would you characterize the entire Little Rock healthcare landscape currently? Troy Wells  From the hospital side, I would categorize it as stable, in that we don’t have a lot of ownership changes or facilities being bought and sold. An exception to that is the merger of Dignity Health with CHI, but I can’t anticipate what kinds of change that may bring to the landscape necessarily. While it is stable from an ownership per- spective, I would say hospital economics are anything but stable. There is a wide variation in financial performance across the com- munity, in terms of hospitals, from year to year. The financial gains from the Medicaid expansion in Arkansas have, for the most part, disappeared as inflation for providers continues to accelerate faster than any pay- ment increases hospitals have received or will receive. Clinically, hospitals are doing better today than they’ve ever done in terms of providing clinical care to patients. We are fortunate in central Arkansas to have exceptional hospitals and physicians pro- viding care not just to central Arkansas, but the entire state. We have better clinical care than I think we’ve ever had in central Arkan- sas, and that is because of the number of providers and their willingness to adopt new technology and do new things to support the entire state. On the physician side, there appears to be change and more activity with mergers and acquisitions. Large physician groups that affiliate with a health system or merge with each other are still continuing at a pretty rapid pace, and that is a change from the way it was 10 years ago. It seems that everyone is trying to understand the current environment and deal with the economic challenges of providing care and replacing retiring physicians. Whether you are a hospital or physician provider, the eco- nomics are as challenging as they’ve ever been. How do you continue to provide high- quality care to the communities you serve under the economic pressure of trying to maintain clinicians in a state like Arkansas that competes with the rest of the country in Troy Wells is the president and chief executive officer of Baptist Health, the largest healthcare system in Arkansas, comprised of eleven hospitals, a large integrated physician enterprise, a retirement village and long term care facility, state-wide home health and hospice agencies, a joint venture Health Maintenance Organization, and multiple for-profit subsidiaries. Wells assumed the role of chief executive in June 2014, becoming only the third person to hold this title since WorldWar II. Wells joined Baptist Health in 2006, and since that time has held many roles, including vice president of clinical services, vice president of Practice Plus, chief executive officer of Arkansas Health Group, and senior vice president of administrative services. Prior to joining Baptist Health, Wells was the chief operating officer of Newport Hospital & Clinic in Newport, Arkansas. Wells earned a master’s degree in health-services administration from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Wells is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, the Arkansas Executives Forum, Young Presidents Organization, and Fifty for the Future. He serves as a director on multiple boards, including Goodwill Industries of Arkansas, Parkway Village Inc., the American Hospital Association Healthcare Systems Council, the alumni chapter of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce, Healthy Active Arkansas, and the Downtown Rotary Club of Little Rock.