Bringing World-Class Health Care to the Heartland

NORTHWEST ARKANSAS (Sept. 24, 2024) – Today, the Alice L. Walton Foundation, Mercy, and Heartland Whole Health Institute announced a 30-year, $700 million affiliation agreement in a joint effort to expand access to health care, reduce costs, and improve health outcomes in the Heartland. Cleveland Clinic will collaborate, providing world-class cardiovascular expertise to the effort.

The affiliation will bring highly sought after transformative, value-based care to the Heartland, while reducing health care costs. It will include cutting-edge specialties and virtual care, developed with the whole person in mind. To support this vision, Mercy is committing $350 million, which will include initially building a new cardiac care center of excellence on Mercy’s campus in Rogers, Arkansas, and resources for additional physician recruitment.

Additionally, Alice L. Walton Foundation will provide $350 million in part to develop an outpatient center of excellence for specialty care, including new cardiac services and virtual care in Bentonville, and to attract, train, and retain top physicians for the region. This effort represents one of the largest-ever specialty care investments in the Heartland.

Following these initial investments, the organizations will explore additional opportunities to expand care in the region.

“We believe that everyone deserves quality whole health care closer to home,” says philanthropist Alice Walton, founder of Heartland Whole Health Institute and the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine. “This powerful collaboration with Mercy and Cleveland Clinic will change the health care landscape in the Heartland, bringing together organizations that are dedicated to increasing quality, reducing costs, and making accessible, value-based care a reality.”

Cleveland Clinic, a national leader in cardiology and heart and vascular surgery, will provide on-site expertise to drive world-class clinical excellence in cardiovascular care by establishing processes, best practices, and fostering a culture of innovation. Mercy and Cleveland Clinic will co-brand the world-class cardiovascular center to be built on Mercy’s campus.

“We are pleased to be working together with the Alice L. Walton Foundation, Mercy, and Heartland Whole Health Institute to enhance access to quality cardiovascular care for the communities of Northwest Arkansas,” said Cleveland Clinic CEO and President Tom Mihaljevic, M.D., holder of the Morton L. Mandel CEO Chair. “This collaboration helps Cleveland Clinic fulfill our commitment to provide safe, compassionate care for more patients.”

Mercy, consistently ranked as one of the nation’s largest and highest performing Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) for almost two decades, has invested in care models and infrastructure to ensure high-quality and low-cost care across the regions it serves. Mercy’s leadership in value-based care has saved CMS (U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) more than $250 million over the last five years.

“We are at the beginning of a decades-long relationship to transform health care,” says Steve Mackin, Mercy’s President and CEO. “Health care has become increasingly complex, but we are committed to working closely with Alice and her teams to innovate a new model of care − one that reduces the total cost of health care while increasing the quality of care and providing access for all. Mercy opened the first virtual care center in the nation in 2015, long before a worldwide pandemic demanded virtual care for consumers. We are excited about bringing significantly enhanced, broad specialty care to Northwest Arkansas, while continuing to create meaningful and lasting change in the region.”

The 30-year agreement will include significant investments making Northwest Arkansas a destination for care and a national example of how to provide health care in new and innovative ways.

The Alice L. Walton Foundation and Cleveland Clinic previously announced an initiative to enhance access to specialty care services in Northwest Arkansas, following a study that revealed many patients leave the region for cardiology services, among other specialties.

One of the fastest growing regions in the U.S., Northwest Arkansas is situated to support a world-class health care destination at the center of the nation’s Heartland. The cardiac centers will form the foundation of a health hub that will:

• Provide residents in the 20-state Heartland region access to a comprehensive spectrum of cardiac services.
• Reduce total cost of care while increasing quality through value-based payment initiatives and delivery services.
• Deploy a model of preventative, whole health care that leverages technology and telehealth to improve health outcomes and reduce health care costs for the region.
• Attract a large group of new physicians, with plans for Mercy to bring hundreds to the region in the coming years.
• Position Northwest Arkansas as the premier health care destination and encourage new patients from the middle of the country to seek care in the region.
• Contribute to the Heartland’s economic strength, treat patients closer to home, and significantly reduce the $950 million currently lost annually due to patients seeking specialty care outside of Northwest Arkansas.

Mercy and Cleveland Clinic will collaborate with Heartland Whole Health Institute to ensure whole health principles form the foundation of the new cardiac centers, considering patients’ physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being and putting them at the center of a preventative and value-based care model. As part of the agreement, Mercy will serve as the primary educational partner for Alice L. Walton School of Medicine.

“We believe that transparent, wellness-oriented care is nonnegotiable,” says Walter Harris, President and CEO, Heartland Whole Health Institute. “Providers and patients alike benefit when the traditional approach to care and physician reimbursement is abandoned for a model that prioritizes keeping patients healthy and costs down. This is just the beginning of what we will accomplish together.”

(Image: Mercy campus in Rogers, Arkansas)

About the Alice L. Walton Foundation

Founded in 2017, the Alice L. Walton Foundation works to enhance the quality of life for individuals through providing access to offerings that improve well-being and create diverse and inclusive communities. The foundation focuses on philanthropist Alice Walton’s commitment to increasing access to the arts, improving education outcomes, enhancing health, and advancing economic opportunity for all. Through this work, the foundation strives to deliver meaningful and lasting change to individuals and communities most in need.

About Heartland Whole Health Institute

Founded in 2019 by philanthropist Alice Walton, Heartland Whole Health Institute puts a whole health approach at the center of the broader health care system to address the current health care crisis. The vision is to advocate, educate, and guide the implementation of an innovative system, rooted in whole health and the realignment of financial incentives. The Institute was driven by its founder’s health care experience, and furthered by research revealing that the United States has one of the highest levels of health care spending worldwide yet relatively low rankings in overall health. In conjunction with Alice L. Walton School of Medicine, the Institute will transform health care by improving outcomes, reducing costs, and expanding access, beginning in the Heartland and scaling nationally.

About Mercy  

Mercy, one of the 20 largest U.S. health systems and named the top large system in the U.S. for excellent patient experience by NRC Health, serves millions annually with nationally recognized care and one of the nation’s largest and highest performing Accountable Care Organizations in quality and cost. Mercy is a highly integrated, multi-state health care system including more than 50 acute care and specialty (heart, children’s, orthopedic and rehab) hospitals, convenient and urgent care locations, imaging centers and pharmacies. Mercy has over 900 physician practice locations and outpatient facilities, more than 4,500 physicians and advanced practitioners and 50,000 co-workers serving patients and families across Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Mercy also has clinics, outpatient services and outreach ministries in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. In fiscal year 2023 alone, Mercy provided more than half a billion dollars of free care and other community benefits, including traditional charity care and unreimbursed Medicaid.

About Cleveland Clinic

Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Located in Cleveland, Ohio, it was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation. Cleveland Clinic has pioneered many medical breakthroughs, including coronary artery bypass surgery and the first face transplant in the United States. Cleveland Clinic is consistently recognized in the U.S. and throughout the world for its expertise and care. Among Cleveland Clinic’s 81,000 employees worldwide are more than 5,743 salaried physicians and researchers, and 20,160 registered nurses and advanced practice providers, representing 140 medical specialties and subspecialties. Cleveland Clinic is a 6,690-bed health system that includes a 173-acre main campus near downtown Cleveland, 23 hospitals, 276 outpatient facilities, including locations in northeast Ohio; southeast Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Toronto, Canada; Abu Dhabi, UAE; and London, England. In 2023, there were 13.7 million outpatient encounters, 323,000 hospital admissions and observations, and 301,000 surgeries and procedures throughout Cleveland Clinic’s health system. Patients came for treatment from every state and 132 countries. Visit us at clevelandclinic.org. Follow us at twitter.com/ClevelandClinic. News and resources available at newsroom.clevelandclinic.org.

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