Health care leaders want Walton partnership to improve heart health beyond NWA

A multi-institution partnership promises to boost cardiac care in our growing region while supporting Walmart heir Alice Walton's vision of transforming American health care.

Why it matters: Cardiovascular care is one of the region's most mature specialty care offerings but has room to grow, making it well positioned to take it to world-class care, Mercy Arkansas president Ryan Gehrig told Axios.

• And heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and in Arkansas , according to the CDC.

Catch up quick: The Alice L. Walton Foundation, Mercy and Heartland Whole Health Institute recently announced a 30-year agreement that includes $350 million from Mercy and another $350 million from the Alice L. Walton Foundation to build new facilities and recruit doctors.

• The organizations will also have a ten-year agreement with Cleveland Clinic, which will act as a consultant and offer its best practices, Scotty Cooper, Mercy Arkansas regional physician executive, told Axios.

Zoom in: Mercy plans to build space at its existing hospital in Rogers for cardiac care and be a tenant at the foundation's future outpatient center that could offer more specialty care services in the future, Gehrig and Cooper said.

• The foundation envisions building an outpatient clinic in Bentonville, but is in the early stages of deciding what it will entail, foundation spokesperson Diane Carroll told Axios.
• Likewise, details like the number of doctors, specific services, the scale of the brick-and-mortar buildings and a timeline are all TBD.

What they're saying: "The intention of this partnership is to make Northwest Arkansas a destination for the highest level of health care," Cooper said.

Flashback: This goes back to the 2019 study commissioned by the Northwest Arkansas Council, Carroll said. The study found that NWA residents were spending $950 million a year elsewhere on health care and related travel costs like hotels and meals, and the report gave recommendations on how to not only keep residents in town for health care but attract patients from outside NWA.

• NWA residents were mostly leaving for specialty care, and advanced cardiology was in the top two specialties that were the most "economically impactful deficits to the regional economy," according to the report.
• Alice Walton has since announced the creation of the Heartland Whole Health Institute, a nonprofit focusing on healthcare advocacy. Also in the works is the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine, a four-year medical school.

The big picture: Medical students will do most of their clinical rotations at Mercy, which is similarly aligned to the "whole health" philosophy that emphasizes preventative care, healthy lifestyles and emotional and mental health, Gehrig said. Mercy wants to promote a proactive approach to health care that keeps patients out of the highest-cost settings.

• "Cardiovascular care has to be hand in hand with primary care to take care of these patients, keep them healthier, keep them out of the hospital and maintain their health and still have the ability to respond to patients' crises," Cooper said.