A $700M mission: Mercy and Alice Walton Foundation want to change healthcare

Steve Mackin, president and CEO of Mercy, confesses that he’s still a bit astonished when he heard the commitment of Alice Walton.

Steve Mackin, president and CEO of Mercy, says the $700 million partnership with the Alice Walton Foundation will help transform care in northern Arkansas.

“I guess I still have to wake up a little bit,” he says.

Mercy, a large nonprofit hospital system, and the Alice L. Walton Foundation last week announced a $700 million, 30-year partnership to improve access to healthcare. The foundation has pledged $350 million, with Mercy also investing $350 million into the wide-ranging initiative to improve healthcare access and outcomes.

The partnership also includes the Heartland Whole Health Institute, founded by Alice Walton, and the Cleveland Clinic, which will be contributing to the expansion of cardiovascular services.

Mackin and Walter Harris, president and CEO of Heartland, spoke with Chief Healthcare Executive® last week to talk about the effort. (See part of our conversation in this video. The story continues below.)

Both Mackin and Harris lauded the commitment of Alice Walton, the philanthropist and daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton. They say she’s driven and passionate about the need to change healthcare, both in Arkansas and nationwide.

When Harris heard of Walton’s plan to commit $350 million to the effort, he said his initial thought was simply, “Let’s go.”

“When Alice makes her mind up and she makes a commitment, there's no turning back,” he says. “We move forward.”

Walter Harris, president and CEO of the Heartland Whole Health Institute, says that expanding access to care is vital in northern Arkansas, as some communities don't have doctors.

• Read more: Heartland Whole Health Institute hopes $700M partnership makes national impact

Improving cardiac care

While Mercy and Heartland leader’s hope to produce successes that can be adopted on a larger scale, much of the focus aims on improving healthcare in northwest Arkansas. They’re aiming to develop expanded offerings in primary and specialty care, more surgical capabilities, and additional outpatient facilities.

The plans call for the development of a new cardiac care center on Mercy’s campus in Rogers, Arkansas.

Cleveland Clinic, a leader in cardiovascular care, will bring its expertise to the cardiac care center, and officials tout the potential of improved and innovative treatments. Mackin says Mercy will

“We appreciate and honor just the level of intensity that Cleveland Clinic brings specifically to cardiovascular care,” Mackin says. “When you visit their centers, there's a level of detail that they put into their patient care, their technologies and their operations, and to be able to tap into that insight and integrate that into a community-based setting is going to be a great thing for the Northwest Arkansas community.”

Harris says Cleveland Clinic’s expertise and reputation will strengthen their efforts in raising the level of cardiac care.

“Cleveland tends to be number one ranked in cardiovascular services on a regular basis,” Harris says. “And we thought, why not have a partner who's really good at cardiovascular services come in and work with a strong organization like Mercy and raise all the boats, right? And that's kind of the thinking of that. So Mercy is good at these things as well, but then we say a recognizable name helps to bring more notoriety to an issue that we can pursue.”

Alice Walton's foundation is committing $350 million over 30 years, which is being matched by Mercy. Walton has invested significantly in efforts to improve healthcare.

In addition to the cardiac center on the Mercy campus Mercy and Heartland will also be developing an outpatient center in Bentonville, Arkansas, with specialty services, including cardiovascular care.

“That's equally important, so both will start simultaneously, so we can comprehensively meet the needs of low to medium to highly complex cardiovascular patients,” Mackin says.

Harris says the efforts in cardiac care reflect the fact that many people in northwest Arkansas leave the region for specialty care. He points to an analysis that found about a billion dollars in specialty care leaves the region annually. He also notes that women in particular need more cardiovascular services.

“We thought there were a line of specialty carriers that are needed, but we thought the most impactful one to come out first would be cardiovascular,” Harris says.

Mackin points to the need to offer more care in northwest Arkansas so people wouldn’t have to travel long distances for specialty services, and he pointed to that as an area of alignment with the Alice Walton Foundation.

“There's a real need in the state of Arkansas to bring more advanced care to the community,” Mackin says. “The out-migration of care was a problem to solve.”

Tom Mihaljevic, MD, president and CEO of Cleveland Clinic, said he’s looking forward to the collaboration.

“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,” Mihaljevic said in a statement.

Reaching underserved communities

Mercy and Heartland leaders both stress that they are especially concerned with reaching those in northern Arkansas who have limited access to care. And as Harris notes, the lack of access is a problem for many in the region.

As Harris notes, “There are certain counties in Arkansas that don't even have doctors in it.”

As a nonprofit Catholic system, Mercy has long worked to care for those with lower incomes, and he says the system’s board annually examines the success of efforts in eliminating disparities in care and outcomes, Mackin says.

Still, he acknowledges that there are persistent gaps in care in Arkansas.

“The state of Arkansas is very low in many of the national healthcare rankings, in part because of healthcare disparities,” Mackin says.

Both Mackin and Harris say the organizations will work to expand telehealth options for those who can’t easily get to a doctor or clinic.

“We believe extending virtual care options, and extending primary care and bringing more access to specialty services will start to address some of those solutions,” Mackin says. “But we've got to take a holistic approach to engage … those populations.”

He says thinking more comprehensively includes reaching out to those who have no insurance and getting them on Medicaid, and ensuring they have access to care both virtually and in person.

Harris also discusses the value of virtual care to offer primary care and preventive services.

“There are many folks who don't even know what their conditions are,” Harris says. “We give them the modality and the access to it, and that changes things. And many people don't know that chronic conditions are reversible. We give them the information they need in the teaching and the learning, so that they can take control of their own healthcare.”

And Harris says such efforts reduce stress on the healthcare system for cardiovascular services and other critical services.

“So the message really is, if we start doing preventive care, because we don't do enough of that, that helps to really reduce the cost of healthcare and grows access in some exponential ways,” Harris says.

Engaging in a different way

In addition to expanding primary and specialty care options, both Mackin and Harris say their goal is changing the way northwest Arkansas views healthcare.

They’re looking to engage residents to help improve their own health. They also are looking to get employers to take a more active role in helping to ensure their workers stay healthy.

“There's an opportunity to engage employers to manage their populations more effectively with more comprehensive solutions,” Mackin says. “Locally, there was a need to expand primary care to more parts of northwest Arkansas so people have easy access and low-cost access.”

Ultimately, Mackin says they want to help people get more involved in their healthcare.

“We want it to look and feel very different than it historically has been,” Mackin says.

“We don't want hospitals in these locations and these investments we're making to be where people go just in emergency situations,” he adds. “Of course, we'll be there for that, but we want to engage the community in a fundamentally different healthcare experience that can meet their needs at 10 o'clock at night from their couch, as well as when they're in a moment of understanding their long-term needs and trajectory that we can impact. So that's the key aspect of the vision.”