The Rogers hospital unveiled plans to address unmet senior behavioral health need with $1 million Walmart Foundation gift
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- Gordon Goss, Mercy Foundation Chairman, welcomes the crowd
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- Scott Street, Mercy President/CEO, shares about the Senior Behavioral Health Unit Project
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- Karen Parker, Senior Manager with the Walmart Foundation, announces the gift
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- Scott Street and Gordon Goss accept the gift from Karen Parker
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- Scott Street, Karen Parker, Gordon Goss
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- Senior Behavioral Health Unit Project Plans
A $1 million donation from the Walmart Foundation is opening the door for Mercy Hospital to further broaden its’ health care services and address an unmet need in Northwest Arkansas with the introduction of a Senior Behavioral Health Program. The geriatric facility will be located on the seventh floor of Mercy’s Hospital located at 2710 Rife Medical Lane in Rogers. Based on a recent market assessment Mercy found in NWA and Southwest Missouri that senior behavioral health services were being underserved.
“This announcement represents so much to us personally,” said Scott Street, CEO of Mercy Northwest Arkansas. “It represents Mercy fulfilling a commitment to our patients and our community to stay on top of the evolving health care needs, addressing those needs and allowing people to be cared for here in our own community where we tend to feel more comfortable. It also represents completing part of Mercy’s Community Master Plan, which is certainly an important mile marker for us as an organization. We want our co-workers, patients and our community to see and feel the commitment we have to being a pillar in the Northwest Arkansas medical landscape.”
Clark Ellision, Mercy Foundation Vice-President stated, “It is one thing to see a need and a complete other to be able to address that need for patients, and we want to thank the Walmart Foundation and all the Walmart associates they represent for giving us the opportunity to look future patients in the eye and be able to say, yes sir or yes ma’am, we can take care of you right here.”
According to statistics from the Department of Health and Administration, the population 65 and over increased from 35 million in 2000 to 40 million in 2010 (a 15 percent increase) and is projected to increase to 55 million in 2020 (a 36 percent increase for that decade.
“Walmart is committed to giving back to our home area,” says Karen Parker of the Walmart Foundation. “Our grant to Mercy Hospital will be used for important new construction as well as expanding access to healthcare for many local families.”
Mercy Northwest Arkansas employs 1,600 people. It includes the 200 bed Mercy Hospital in Rogers, Ambulatory Surgery Center in Bentonville, and 30 Mercy Clinic locations within the Northwest Arkansas region; Bella Vista, Bentonville, Centerton, Lowell, Rogers and Noel, Mo. Mercy employs more than 130 integrated providers across Northwest Arkansas. Mercy Northwest Arkansas is part of Mercy which is the nation’s sixth largest Catholic health care organization in the U.S. For more information, visit www.mercy.net/nwa.