CONWAY — Another health care facility is coming to Conway.
Acadia Healthcare of Franklin, Tennessee, broke ground Oct. 6 on Conway Behavioral Health, an 80-bed, $24 million inpatient facility. It will be on Sturgis Road, just south of The Meadows Technology Park.
Brad Lacy, president of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce and Conway Development Corp., said the project solidifies the city’s role as “a regional destination for health care.”
Baptist Health Medical Center-Conway opened in September, and the city has long been home to Conway Regional Medical Center.
The new 70,000-square-foot facility will be the first of its kind for Conway, said Matt Wiltshire of Alexander, who will be the CEO for the facility.
Conway Regional Medical Center has a senior behavioral-health unit for older patients with dementia or depression.
Wiltshire said the “acute mental-health facility” will be for children, adolescents and adults, and there will be a few beds for geriatric patients. It also will offer substance-abuse services.
“This will be the first for Conway,” he said. Wiltshire compared the facility with The Bridgeway or Pinnacle Pointe Behavioral Heath System. “It’s basically identical to those; they’re in Little Rock. What we’re trying to do is provide a similar service in Faulkner County for Conway and the surrounding area,” he said.
Wiltshire said he is CEO of Millcreek Behavioral Health, a residential facility for adolescents in Fordyce, and will oversee the Conway facility when it opens. He said it will employ about 150 people.
The majority of Conway Behavioral Health patients will be referred by health care professionals, or in some cases, law enforcement officers, Wiltshire said.
“[The patients] have to meet criteria and meet medical necessity: Are they a danger to themselves or others? Say I’m an adult, and I’m suicidal — I may go to an emergency room. That hospital would make a decision to refer [the patient] to a psych ward — if they had one — or they would refer them to us.”
He said the patient would stay an average of six to eight days, “until they’re stable, and we could look at setting up outpatient services.”
Lori Ross, marketing director for the Conway Regional Health System, said the behavioral facility “is very much needed.”
“There are a lot of patients who come in with a combined problem of a medical issue, as well as an emotional, behavioral issue,” Ross said. “The bigger challenge is — and why it’s needed — we have a lot of patients who strictly have behavioral problems, and they need an option for local care.”
Mayor Tab Townsell said Acadia Healthcare “came into Conway quietly.” Acadia Healthcare representatives did research on the market and demographics, availability of a work force, and “they scouted out locations,” he said. “They did it on their own. Then they contacted Brad [Lacy].”
Wiltshire said that a couple of years ago, the Acadia Division president at the time told him the company wanted to expand in Arkansas and asked for suggestions.
“We have a number of facilities in and around Arkansas — I’m pretty familiar with Conway because my daughter goes to UCA …,” Wiltshire said. “I’d been seeing it grow. I felt like that was the perfect place. … I started looking around on my own.”
Wiltshire said he found the piece of property on Sturgis Road and called Jamie Gates, executive vice president of the Conway Area Chamber of Commerce and Conway
Development Corp., and started the permits process with the city.
“It’s been the easiest process as far as getting everything approved,” Wiltshire said. “Conway has been absolutely wonderful, and that’s not just my opinion — it’s our architect and project manager. [The city representatives] are so business-friendly — Conway Corp., Conway officials, Conway Development Corp. — they are very business-minded. It’s very obvious they want business there; they take the roadblocks out.”
The freestanding facility has a target opening date of October 2017, Wiltshire said, with the usual caveat that the project’s completion date will depend on the weather. The facility will include a gymnasium, primarily for patients, he said.
“We’ll be doing different community activities there at the gym, as well. We try to be a good community partner,” he said.
Townsell said Conway Behavioral Health will provide another option in Conway’s growing health care community.
“Medical care has always been something more regional in nature than I had originally thought,” he said. Conway Regional Medical Center’s footprint is “considered to be five counties,” he said. “Baptist locating here anchors the northern gateway more certainly in Conway. … This is another option.”
He said the city’s educational system can support Conway Behavioral Health.
“UCA is known for its health-science fields,” Townsell said.
Acadia operates a network of 591 behavioral health care facilities with approximately 17,800 beds in 39 states, the United Kingdom and Puerto Rico, according to a press release. The company provides behavioral health and addiction services, including inpatient psychiatric hospitals, residential-treatment centers, outpatient clinics and therapeutic school-based programs.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.