Siloam Springs joins health system

Siloam Springs Regional Hospital has formally joined the Northwest Health medical system, which will simplify patients’ search for health care within the system’s network of facilities, officials said Thursday.

The four-year-old Siloam Springs hospital brings almost 120 medical staff members and 42 beds to Northwest, said Rebecca Pearrow, hospital marketing and business director. The addition brings the system to 487 beds and 540 physicians among the Siloam Springs hospital, Northwest Medical Centers in Springdale and Bentonville, Willow Creek Women’s Hospital in Johnson and Physicians’ Specialty Hospital in Fayetteville, according to a news release from Northwest.

Northwest and Siloam Springs were already linked; both have long been part of Tennessee-based Community Health Systems, and patients are regularly referred back and forth between the regional hospital and the Northwest system, said Pat Driscoll, Northwest marketing vice president. Nothing changes for those patients, she said.

The change will have more impact on the front end of the patient relationship when someone’s looking for care, Driscoll said. Instead of looking at Siloam Springs and Northwest separately, people can look for services and clinics at both in one place, a combined Northwest website that should come sometime in the next couple of months, she said.

Siloam Springs and Northwest will also compete against Mercy Northwest Arkansas, Washington Regional Medical Center and other providers for patients amid what health care officials have said is a shortage of doctors compared to demand. All of the health systems have been hiring physicians or adding clinics in the past few years.

“We’ve always worked closely together,” Pearrow said, adding the same board is still in charge of Siloam Springs. “Over time, we can exchange best practices and enhance the care that we provide in our regional area.”

The 92,000- square- foot Siloam Springs hospital replaced a community facility that was about half as large and decades old.