Printer-friendly format

HealthPark Hospital in Hot Springs

Editor's note: The first in a regular series of articles looking at healthcare issues around the state.

Healthcare news doesn't just happen in Little Rock, it happens around the entire state.

A new hospital here or major expansion there, Arkansas healthcare is booming and one of the newest is HealthPark Hospital in Hot Springs.

Started in 2002, HealthPark is the newest entry into the Hot Springs healthcare market and it joins a crowded field with four other hospitals in Hot Springs. St. Joseph's Mercy Medical Center and National Park Medical

Center are the two largest hospitals in town. The two smaller facilities are Advance Care Hospital, that specializes in long-term acute care, while Levi Hospital is a Jewish heritage service facility and also offers hospice and rehabilitation services.

At first glance, HealthPark Hospital doesn't much look like a medical facility, the building more resembles a big southern home with its white columns out front.

"That was by design," said HealthPark CEO Jason Spring. "We didn't want it to look like a hospital. We wanted it where people would be more comfortable when they came in."

The question would be is if Hot Springs could support that many hospitals.

"Each one of them has a distinctive place in the community," said Arkansas Hospital Association spokesman Paul Cunningham. "It is not all that unusual to have five there and it is a metro area. Hot Springs is now its own MSA (metropolitan statistical area.)"

Hot Springs is around 40,000 people and Garland County has a population of close to 100,000. Healthcare is big business; according to a 2005 government report, more than 12 percent of the total work force for the MSA (4,670 of 38,250) works in a healthcare-related field.

"The perception is that it is all retired people here," Spring said. "But Hot Springs is more than just that; it is a vibrant, growing community. I like to think that our downtown is the best in the state."

Spring worked at St. Vincent in Little Rock before joining HealthPark and has been in Hot Springs for a little over three years.

It isn't just Hot Springs and Garland County. The Hot Springs healthcare market really serves a much larger area than that.

"We get them from all over," said Dr. Gene Shelby, an emergency room physician at National Park and a candidate for state representative. "Hot Springs serves all of southwest Arkansas. All the way down to Hope, even Texarkana. They all come here."

HealthPark says its main coverage area isn't quite that but still it is substantial with the hospital serving Garland, Hot Springs, Clark, Pike, Montgomery and Polk counties.

HealthPark's start was actually as Hot Springs Surgical Hospital, but as the facility grew and more services were added, the name was changed to reflect that growth. The specialties and services offered now number more than 20 and range from a wound healing center with a hyperbaric chamber to urology and orthopedic surgery. The hospital also offers minimally invasive surgery and considers it a center of excellence.

Along with 20 beds, 121 physicians have staff privileges at HealthPark, and the chief of staff is Dr. Steve Bodemann. The long-term plan isn't to stay at 20 beds, however. The hospital would like to be 50 beds in 10 years and also have a medical office building beside the hospital.

The room is certainly there for more. HealthPark's campus covers an expansive plot of land just off the freeway and Higdon Ferry Road.

HealthPark isn't the newest hospital in the state, Arkansas Surgical Hospital in North Little Rock is just a little more than a year old and Arkansas Heart Hospital checks in at 10, but the common theme of all three is that they are physician-owned.

"The doctors here saw a need and they got together to make it happen," Spring said of the 26 local physicians who got together. "They spent their own money and took the risk, but they thought that the community, the area needed it."

Next Stop: Benton

Tags:

None

Do you know someone else who would like to see this?
Your Email:
Their Email:
Comment:	(Will be included with e-mail)
Secret Code	In the box below, enter the Secret Code exactly as it appears above *