Dirt was shoveled by small children and big dignitaries on Wednesday to celebrate construction of a children's health clinic in southwest Little Rock.
The bilingual event was held near the construction site -- a deep rectangular hole at 9015 Dailey Drive -- of the clinic that's part of an effort by Arkansas Children's Hospital to extend its reach across the state.
"We're really just focused on the 75 counties in Arkansas," the hospital's chief strategy officer, Dr. Rob Steele, joked.
To that goal, Children's Hospital has in the works:
• The Southwest Little Rock Community Clinic. Near the city's community center at 6401 Baseline Road, it is expected to open in May, Marcy Doderer, the hospital's president and CEO, said. She expects 8,000 to 9,000 patient visits a year.
• An expansion of the hospital's telemedicine program. The hospital plans, with the help of two federal grants, to include 40 schools in primarily rural areas. A pilot program is in operation at Angie Grant Elementary School in Benton.
Steele said he was in St. Louis on Tuesday, got a call from the school nurse at the school and, via the telemedicine link, diagnosed a pupil with an ear infection.
• An exploration of the use of mobile units to provide primary care and specialty care to children around the state. The hospital already has three mobile dental clinics.
• Expansion of the hospital's clinic in Jonesboro, serving Northeast Arkansas.
• Creation of what the hospital calls Arkansas Children's Care Network to coordinate pediatric care across the state. The network's infrastructure, including information technology, is being put into place in expectation of the network's operation in 2017.
• A school nurse academy, developed with the Arkansas Department of Health, to keep school nurses current and connected.
• Arkansas Children's Hospital Northwest, under construction in Springdale, is expected to be completed in 2018 at an estimated cost of $167 million.
In southwest Little Rock, the clinic will have 11,050 square feet of space and have bilingual staff to accommodate the area's influx of Spanish speakers. It will have 15 clinic rooms, a laboratory, X-ray services and services for the Women, Infants and Children food and nutrition program.
Little Rock owns the 2 wooded acres on which the clinic will be built. Mayor Mark Stodola said he expected the clinic to be there for a long time. The hospital has a 99-year lease, he said, at a cost of a dollar a year.
Suzanne Mancera, a patient advocate for the hospital, emphasized the need for health care workers who speak Spanish.
The opening of the clinic, she said, "means opening doors for families to express their concerns for their children."
Mancera's two children have been Children's Hospital patients, she said.
"When you have someone who speaks your language, you feel immediately at home."
Southwest Little Rock includes the 72209 ZIP code. Census data from 2010 shows a population of about 32,000. About 21,000 of those residents are black, and about 5,500 are Hispanic. The ZIP code has a median household income of $29,505. The Census Bureau estimates that the state's median household income as $41,264.
The vision of Arkansas Children's Hospital "is to fundamentally transform the health of children in Arkansas by building a statewide network of care," Doderer said.
With the clinic and the other initiatives, "we're well on our way."
Metro on 10/27/2016