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Fort Smith
Mercy Hospital Fort Smith is set to open a newly expanded emergency room (ER) and intensive care unit (ICU), significantly enhancing care for patients across the River Valley.
A celebration, blessing and open house for the soon-to-open facilities were held Friday inside the new space. The event featured both Mercy and community leaders, who gathered ahead of the official opening dates for the new departments, as well as Bishop Anthony Taylor of the Diocese of Little Rock, who blessed the new space. The new ER is scheduled to open to patients May 7, while two new ICU floors and the new ICU entrance will open in the following weeks. The new main entrance will open for all patients and visitors this fall, upon completion of interior corridors.
Mercy announced the $186 million expansion project in 2021, with the goal of improving emergency and critical care for patients and creating a better workflow for caregivers, enhancing their ability to serve the community. The hospital’s ER will grow from 29 to 50 rooms, enabling Mercy to serve nearly 25,000 more patients each year. (The original ER, which opened in 1975, was designed to handle only 30,000 visits per year.) The design includes expanded flexibility and enhanced accommodations for patients with infectious diseases and behavioral health needs, all while keeping safety in mind for both patients and caregivers.
The ICU will also see a major boost in capacity, increasing from 38 to 64 beds. This expansion more than doubles the number of rooms capable of supporting ventilators, greatly improving the hospital’s ability to manage complex and critical cases.
The hospital’s former ICU space will be converted to a 22-bed observation unit. The ICU and ER upgrades are supported by a state-of-the-art automation system that allows entire floors or pods to be converted into isolation areas when needed.
“These significant upgrades reflect Mercy’s continued commitment to delivering exceptional care and meeting the growing health needs of the region,” said Ryan Gehrig, Mercy Arkansas Communities president. “We are blessed to have such supportive community members and caregivers helping us look forward to improved health care in the River Valley.”
Mercy expects to hire about 200 more caregivers in the next few years to help expand patient care in the new departments. To support the increased patient volume, Mercy Fort Smith is adding 400 parking spaces near the new ER entrance and plans to expand visitor services with a gift shop and meeting room space, expected to be complete in the fall.
“Since breaking ground on this project on a chilly day in February 2022, many teams have been working hard to get to this exciting step in the project,” said Jason Demke, chief operating officer at Mercy Fort Smith. “Today marks the completion of the expansion of our ER and ICU services, although we’ve been dreaming and working on the design for almost a decade and will change the way our community experiences care.”
Mercy Fort Smith saw more than 68,800 ER visits in 2024, roughly 8% more than in 2023 and more than another other ER in the state. Dr. Aaron Bull, ER medical director at Mercy Fort Smith, acknowledged the struggles many hospitals have had in keeping up with patient demand.
“Emergency rooms across the country are consistently overflowing, which often means patients are waiting hours at a time to be seen,” he said. “We owe it to our patients to improve, and this expansion project is what's needed to help us fulfill our promises to do everything we can for our patients.”
Stephanie Whitaker, Mercy Fort Smith’s chief nursing officer, added, Stephanie Whitaker, Mercy Fort Smith’s chief nursing officer, added, “We're excited to announce the addition of 50 nursing jobs, right here in the Fort Smith community. We'll have more providers, more respiratory therapists, more EVS workers, more transporters, just to serve our community. This expansion only enhances our capacity to care for patients and provides valuable opportunities for skilled jobs."
At the peak of construction, more than 300 contractors were on site to help complete the expansion, Demke said. The project was designed by HKS Inc. of Dallas, and McCarthy Building Companies of St. Louis was the general contractor. Mercy employed local contractors to complete painting, paving, landscaping, roofing and more additions to the expansion, creating an estimated $50 million impact on the River Valley in addition to $14 million outside the area.
