The plans include a hospital, a specialty care center and an oncology facility on a holistic health campus in Bentonville, Arkansas. The partners also will expand healthcare services available on a Mercy campus in nearby Rogers, Arkansas.
The work is part of an estimated 30-year project to improve care access in the region. Mercy, the Alice L. Walton Foundation and other partners announced the effort about two years ago. Alice L. Walton is the daughter and an heiress of Walmart founder Sam Walton.
Mercy; the foundation; the Alice Walton School of Medicine, or AWSOM; the Heartland Whole Health Institute; the Cleveland Clinic and other partners plan to create a "transformative destination for health and well-being in Northwest Arkansas," according to a recent press release. The goal is to improve access to cancer care, heart care, orthopedics, gastroenterology, neurology and other specialties; advance whole-person healthcare; foster innovation in healthcare delivery; and create a hub for extending more healthcare services to rural populations.
Earlier this fall, partners broke ground on the AWSOM Whole Health Campus. The 120-plus-acre site 2 miles east of downtown Bentonville will be a locus of the activity. The first building, the Center for Advanced Specialty Care, is set to open in 2029. It will offer cardiac and other specialty and virtual care. A 1.1 million-square-foot cancer center and a 1 million-square-foot hospital with 250 beds and 40 operating rooms is also slated for development.
The release says the group is developing the AWSOM Whole Health Campus in alignment with Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas. That hospital is based in Rogers, about 10 miles from Bentonville.
According to the release, Alice Walton established the AWSOM medical school and the Heartland Whole Health Institute to advance a holistic approach to care. The release says that the partners involved in the current effort will promote holistic care, and it will be a focus of clinicians' education and training. The partners will advance such care by incorporating therapeutic landscapes, trails and gathering spaces into the campus layout.
The Tyson Family Foundation and Tyson Foods have pledged $50 million toward the AWSOM Whole Health Campus.
Mercy and the Alice L. Walton Foundation earlier each pledged $350 million to this partnership, with much of Mercy's funding going toward a cardiology center of excellence on the Rogers hospital campus. Cleveland Clinic is helping to develop and provide services at that center.