ROGERS -- Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas' new seven-story tower will be open to patients next week.
Mercy hosted an opening ceremony Monday for the $147 million project that has been in the works for three years.
The tower has 279,000 square feet of floor space and is attached to the hospital east of Interstate 49. It includes nearly 70 beds, a hybrid operating room, cardiovascular operating rooms, a general operating room, an endoscopy suite, a heart catheterization lab, a neonatal intensive care unit and the McMillon Family Heart Unit, according to a news release from Mercy. Expanded services include pharmacy, laboratory, registration, patient access, gift shop and a cafe.
The sixth and seventh floors of the tower are not yet in use and allow for more services to be added in the future, said Jennifer Cook, spokeswoman.
Eric Pianalto, the hospital's president, noted the tower is a part of a larger expansion Mercy announced in 2016. Mercy planned to spend $277 million including the tower and several new clinics. Mercy Springdale, a $47 million, 63,000-square-foot, multi-specialty clinic with an emergency department, opened in September.
Mercy has hired about 900 new employees to work at the tower, the multi-specialty clinic and other new clinics since the expansion was announced three years ago and will soon reach about 1,000 new employees total, Cook said. That number includes 100 doctors and nurse practitioners, she said.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson spoke at Monday's ceremony about health care's role in economic development, noting the additional jobs and expertise the Mercy expansion represents.
"That means a great deal to our state in terms of health care and quality of life," Hutchinson said.
Mayor Greg Hines said access to quality health care, as well as education and general quality of life, consistently comes up when city staff meets with human resource directors from the region's employers and with employers considering moving to the region.
"The type of people we want to attract to be our neighbors and co-workers and friends and folks that we sit next to in church come from places in the country that have these amenities and expect them if they're going to move here," Hines said at Monday's ceremony.
U.S. Sen. John Boozman also spoke at the ceremony and said he had been treated well as a patient at Mercy.
U.S. Rep. Steve Womack said health care professionals are owed a debt of gratitude for taking care of people, as are veterans for their service. The event took place on Veterans Day.
"Not lost on me is the fact that in health care, like in national security, it's a 24/7/365 job," the Republican from Rogers said. "While those of you are gathered here today, behind these walls and other parts of this hospital, there are men and women taking care of the sick and afflicted."
Metro on 11/12/2019