UAMS Provides Physician Support to Pine Bluff Clinic
| LITTLE ROCK – The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), through its recently established Center for Healthcare Enhancement and Development, this week started providing physician support to the South Arkansas Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic in Pine Bluff.
Beginning this week, UAMS ear, nose and throat surgeons Jennings Boyette, M.D., and Angela Paddack, M.D., will each practice one day a week at the clinic operated by Stephen Shorts, M.D.
Boyette and Paddack also will each perform surgery one day a week at Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff as part of the arrangement.
Tim Hill, director of the UAMS Center for Healthcare Enhancement and Development, said the partnership in Pine Bluff is one of the many alliances and partnerships the center is engaged or is pursuing across the state to promote best care closest to home.
Hill, formerly director of the UAMS Rural Hospital Program and UAMS Center for Rural Health, leads the new center as its director along with Associate Directors Justin Hunt, M.D., and Mark Jansen, M.D.
Hill said ideas for partnerships exist across the state, including the use of telemedicine to bring specialty care to areas that lack those services.
“The enthusiasm and creativity that we’re sensing is awesome,” Hill said. “We are rethinking both the business model and the health care model. We are coming up with some creative ideas to meet the needs for access to care and improve the health and health care of all Arkansans.”
“The need is certainly there,” Hunt said. “We’re talking to hospitals and providers across the state to determine what their needs are and eventually try to fill those needs.”
In another venture, UAMS will assist White River Health System in Batesville by treating many of its radiation oncology patients for several months in Little Rock while the Batesville hospital installs new technology and equipment.
UAMS is the state’s only health sciences university, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a main campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide network of regional campuses; and eight institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Research Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Translational Research Institute, Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and the Institute for Community Health Innovation. UAMS includes UAMS Health, a statewide health system that encompasses all of UAMS’ clinical enterprise. UAMS is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has 3,275 students, 890 medical residents and fellows, and five dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 12,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians who provide care to patients at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Children’s, the VA Medical Center and Baptist Health. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com. Find us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube or Instagram.###