JEREMY PEPPAS

FORT SMITH — Two is a magic number for Fort Smith.
The second-largest city in Arkansas with a population of 82,481, according to the 2005 census, the metro population of Fort Smith spills over into Oklahoma to cover two states.

Two cities, Fort Smith and Greenwood, serve as the county seats, and Fort Smith is serviced by two urban hospitals, Sparks and St. Edward. Both hospitals operate cancer treatment centers, among other competing facilities and services.
Among Arkansas cities, Fort Smith is the only one that has competing cancer treatment centers.

Other systems around the state contrast with Fort Smith’s competing centers. Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute (CARTI) has seven facilities spread across different cities in the region, while Northwest Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute (NARTI), spread across three facilities, is a joint product of the three hospitals, according to Gay Prescott, the marketing manager for NARTI in Springdale.

The cancer treatment at St. Edward in Fort Smith was a first for the hospital.
“We were actually the first of the so-called centers of excellence,” said Dr. Kenneth Gardner, a radiation oncologist. “It is modern now, but it was ultra-modern when it was built.”

The facility opened in 1994 and was named after H.L. Hembree, a Fort Smith businessman who, along with sister Marie Keith, is widely credited with saving St. Edward from financial trouble in the 1970s.

“They really took a gamble when they built the hospital out on the fringes of town,” Gardner said. “Of course, now the city has grown up and around here.”
St. Edward is located on the eastern end of Rogers Ave., now a thriving commercial corridor for the region.

Gardner said he sees about 500 new patients a year and, “We treat anywhere from 25 to 65 patients a day.”

Gardner’s patients mirror the national averages.

“Lung cancer is the most dominant cancer nationwide, and that’s true here,” he said. “Followed by breast and prostate cancer, we probably see equal proportions of those, but more lung cancer than anything, the smoking-related cancers.”

Gardner, a Benton native, went to medical school at UAMS, did his training at the University of Florida in Gainesville and worked around the state and in Florida before coming to Fort Smith.

“Surprisingly, there’s very little difference,” Gardner said when asked how the regions compare. “Fort Smith has really good doctors. But it used to be, 25 years ago, you had to go to the big city or the big center to get good care. The difference between a big center and a smaller one like this is not all that great any longer.”

The numbers back up Gardner’s claim.

“Our cure rates, stage-for-stage, follow the national averages, if not a little higher.”

The Hospitals
St. Edward Mercy Medical Center in Fort Smith is a 343-bed urban hospital operated by the Sisters of Mercy. The Catholic group operates hospitals around the country and most notably has two other large facilities in Arkansas: St. Joseph in Hot Springs and St. Mary’s in Rogers.
St. Edward and St. Joseph have both undergone major renovation projects in the last five years, while St. Mary’s is getting a brand-new hospital. St. Edward and the Mercy System also operate acute-care facilities in Ozark, Paris and Waldron.

St. Edward also achieved a milestone of sorts.

“The hospital is over 100 years old,” said Rick Bawiec, a physicist, who works with Gardner. “It was from 1906 to 2006, so that’s more than 100 years now.”
Fort Smith’s Sparks Regional Medical Center is the larger facility with 476 beds and is located close to downtown. The facility is operated by Quorum Health and recently installed a new CEO, Frederick D. “Ted” Woodrell of Leesburg, Fla. Woodrell has extensive experience in healthcare and is a former vice chancellor with Ole Miss’s medical school in Jackson and also served as CEO of the University Hospitals and Clinics. Most recently Woodrell worked as a healthcare consultant.

Neither hospital is clearly dominant in Fort Smith’s market.

“I would say it is probably close to a 50-50 split,” Gardner said. “That fluctuates from year to year, and some of that depends on where the employer chooses for insurance, but it is pretty even now.”

Three specialty hospitals also serve Fort Smith: Advance Care Hospital, a 25-bed long-term care facility; Select Specialty Hospital, a 34-bed facility for long-term care; and Vista Health, a 57-bed psychiatric facility.



July 2007