"When you think about health care, it's one of those scary things that's so easily taken for granted," says Tom Hauge, chairman-elect of the Mercy Health Foundation Northwest Arkansas Board of Directors. "If you think about it, you and I, we're all in one of three scenarios -- we're either dealing with a health care issue today, we're recovering from a health care issue, or, unfortunately, there will be something coming. So it's important for us to know about and feel great about our access to health care."
Hauge, vice president of business development for Kendal King Group and Soapbox Insights + Influence, has several personal connections with the hospital system he is now helping to grow. His father-in-law, Lance Klotz, is a chaplain at Mercy; his wife is a member of Mercy's Women with a Mission and is on a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) committee; and his son, now 41/2, was born five weeks prematurely and was in the Mercy NICU for two weeks.
"I am passionate about Mercy for a number of reasons, because of what they've done for my family," Hauge explains. "That's a very scary time for families and new parents. They took amazing care of us."
Expanding the NICU is one of the goals of the most recent capital campaign, launched in 2014. Mercy will be "moving from a Level II [NICU] to a Level III NICU, the highest care possible," according to a publication released in 2014.
"With our expanded NICU that we're working toward, our goal is to have private rooms for our little ones, which will allow for a more family-oriented environment," says Nicole Crawford, director of development. "They can have time to bond, and the child will have quality time to grow and be established for the future."
"They're increasing the space available for families so that, if you have a new child who does have to spend some time in the hospital, you're able to more comfortably do that," explains Hauge. "You've got more resources available. Over the last couple of years, Mercy has made significant strides in improving the capability on the NICU side -- investing in equipment and investing in neonatal care physicians to increase the level of service available to patients, so families aren't having to go down to Little Rock to receive those services ."
Ultimately, Mercy will expand its bed count by almost 60 percent, from 208 to 350 beds. Other goals include expanding behavioral health care services to Northwest Arkansas and expanding access through technology.
The Foundation's largest fundraising event of the year, the annual holiday gala, was on December 3. The 23rd Annual O Night Divine Charity Ball is a chance, as Hauge says, to "dust off your tuxedo and your formal gown. Every year it's one of the premier events in Northwest Arkansas."
This year's live performance was by popular country music duo Dan + Shay, and a live auction was held, emceed by Mercy Hospital Board Member Dick Trammel, founding director of the Northwest Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute and the Single Parent Scholarship Fund of Benton County. Crawford points out that there is still time to bid on the online portion of the auction, which will be running until midnight on Monday. Packages include a five-day, four-night vacation in Bermuda, a three-day, two-night trip to Nashville, Tenn., that includes tickets to the Country Music Awards and an all-inclusive five-day, four-night trip to St. Thomas. The online auctions benefiting Mercy Hospital can be found at www. onightdivine.ggo.mobi.
Crawford says that the annual event routinely attracts between 1,400 and 1,500 attendees, and last year's "Dickey Ray Appeal" -- Trammel's trademark, 10-minute direct fundraising appeal to the event's guests -- raised more than $160,000. Over the past 10 years, Trammel has raised more than $1 million during his appeals.
Hauge points out that, as the Northwest Arkansas area grows, Mercy will continue to grow with it.
"I heard this earlier this week -- Northwest Arkansas is growing at a rate of 34 individuals a day, so we're seeing roughly 12,000 new folks move to Northwest Arkansas a year, which is mind-boggling," says Hauge. "So you think about that, and you think about Mercy's commitment to delivering exceptional health care to all of those areas and markets in which they have a presence, and that's exactly what Mercy and the Foundation are attempting to do here."
NAN Profiles on 12/04/2016