Bentonville’s Heartland Whole Health Institute has launched Heartland Whole Health Connect, which it calls a pioneering initiative designed to create a replicable, nationwide blueprint for rural healthcare transformation.
Connecting six regional healthcare organizations, it is supported by $8.4 million in first-year funding through Arkansas’ Rural Health Transformation Program, a state-administered program established by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to modernize rural care delivery and stabilize community health networks, according to a press release.
The Institute, founded by philanthropist Alice Walton, to transform traditional healthcare into a whole-person approach focused on physical, mental, emotional and social well-being, serves as the central convener driving this multi-system collaboration.
The six participating healthcare organizations each serve roughly 1 million Arkansans. The organizations are Mercy, Community Clinic, Boston Mountain Rural Health Center, North Arkansas Regional Medical Center, St. Bernards Healthcare and Arkansas Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Network.
“With rural mortality increasing nationwide and chronic disease taking an unsustainable human and economic toll, we cannot rely on the reactive, volume-based health models of the past,” said Claude Pirtle, MD, MBA, president of Heartland Whole Health Institute. “Lasting health is shaped by what happens between medical appointments, not just during them. Heartland Whole Health Connect establishes a scalable, value-based framework that empowers local care teams with technology, whole-health training, and resources to address the factors that influence health while expanding access to care in rural communities. Ultimately, this will help Arkansans achieve better health through more coordinated, whole-person care delivered closer to home.”
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