Washington Regional earns designation
Washington Regional Medical Center was designated as an antimicrobial stewardship center of excellence by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. There are 38 hospitals in the United States holding the designation.
Antimicrobial stewardship refers to the steps taken within a health care system to ensure the appropriate use of antibiotics. The objective of stewardship programs is to improve patient outcomes while reducing antibiotic resistance, health care-associated infections and overall health care costs.
The Infectious Diseases Society of America launched the program in 2017. Washington Regional's stewardship program was established in 2012 and is led by Dr. Buddy Newton, chairman of the Arkansas Department of Health's subcommittee for antimicrobial stewardship.
Arvest breaks ground in Rogers
Arvest Bank recently broke ground at its new banking center at 4201 S. J.B. Hunt Drive in the Pinnacle Hills area of Rogers.
The roughly 25,000-square-foot facility is expected to be completed by September and will employ approximately 55 people. The branch also will house mortgage and commercial lenders, as well as Arvest Wealth Management and treasury management associates.
The new branch will feature interactive teller machines, devices that look similar to ATMs but offer video-conferencing, which allows customers to talk to bankers.
CEI Engineering Associates Inc. is the engineer and Hight Jackson Associates is the architect for the project. Crossland Construction Inc. is the general contractor.
Hospitals earn health grades
Mercy Hospital Fort Smith and Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers were among 10 Mercy hospitals and 855 hospitals nationally awarded an A from The Leapfrog Group's Fall 2018 Hospital Safety Grade.
Ouachita County Medical Center in Camden is the only other hospital in the state to earn an A.
The program assigns letter grades to hospitals nationwide based on their performance in preventing medical errors, infections and other harm among patients in their care. Those scores were announced by The Leapfrog Group, a national nonprofit patient safety advocate.
The program uses 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data to assign grades to more than 2,600 U.S. hospitals twice per year. The program's methodology is peer-reviewed and transparent. Results are free to the public.
Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville, Northwest Medical Center in Springdale and Northwest Medical Center -- Bentonville all received Cs. Sparks Regional Medical Center in Fort Smith earned a D.
Briefs are for businesses in Northwest Arkansas that are new, have moved or closed, opened a new branch, changed owners or have been honored by an independent organization. Email items to cswanson@nwadg.com. Information will be published as space allows.
SundayMonday Business on 11/25/2018