Arkansas Heart Hospital to bring Cardiology Center to Texarkana

It will be the hospital’s first out-of-state clinic

Arkansas Heart Hospital will open its first out-of-state facility at 3930 Galleria Oaks Dr. in Texarkana in about a month. (Image courtesy of Arkansas Heart Hospital)
Arkansas Heart Hospital will open its first out-of-state facility at 3930 Galleria Oaks Dr. in Texarkana in about a month. (Image courtesy of Arkansas Heart Hospital)


LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas Heart Hospital will soon be bringing its cardiology care to Texarkana.

Next month, the hospital will open its first out-of-state facility at 3930 Galleria Oaks Dr. in Texarkana, Texas. The 21,000-square-foot building will include a full-service cardiology clinic and, by early 2023, an ambulatory surgery center.

Arkansas Heart Hospital provides services to prevent, diagnose and treat cardiovascular and related diseases. It has 25 clinics throughout Arkansas with 10 being full-time clinics, and two hospitals, one in Little Rock and one in Bryant.

“Arkansas Heart Hospital is pretty well-established in most areas around Arkansas,” CEO Dr. Bruce Murphy said Tuesday. “Now, that’s the backdrop to us expanding across state lines into a community in Texarkana that I think is bustling in old fire with commercial activity, people moving in, educational facilities being constructed, etc.”

AHH has a clinic in Hope, Arkansas that Murphy says has been very active and busy, with roughly a third of its patients possessing a ZIP Code that comes out of Texarkana, Texas. This is in addition to programs like Keep the Beat, which is a heart screening and educational program provided by Arkansas Heart Hospital, that are full of patients that come from East Texas or Southwest Arkansas areas.

“One of the things we find is that the prospective cardiology patient in Texarkana has to wait a long time to see a specialist and then, many times, has to visit the ER at one of the two hospitals before they can even get to the specialist,” Murphy said. “They’re already traveling to see us, and we know that. We’re now going to make an effort to travel to see them.”

The Texarkana clinic will offer general and interventional cardiology; electrophysiology; cardiac imaging; clinical laboratory; and vein and vascular services. A full-time, on-site physician and Courtney Riddle, APRN, will lead the care team. Drs. Scott Beau, Andrew Henry, Wesley Lane, Michael Loguidice, Andre Paixao and Paulo Ribeiro will also be available for regular appointments.

Once complete, the ambulatory surgery center will include fully-equipped hybrid catheterization labs, as well as pre- and post-operative rooms.

“What that allows us to do is actually do procedures that are cardiology procedures on a real-time, out-patient basis,” Murphy said. “This is being ushered in by Medicare wanting us to do that and keep patients out of the hospital as much as possible.”

This center will also have a cardiac PET scanner. A PET scan of the heart is a noninvasive nuclear imaging test.

Murphy said the hospital has been eyeing Texarkana as a target for an expansion project for almost two years. They were slightly held back by the COVID pandemic, as well as another project in Bryant, Arkansas, but have finally made their way over the state line.

Murphy said there’s been a high level of interest from local investors in this project.

“I’ll just say there’s been a lot of interest,” he said. “There’s a perceived void, or at least an area in which patients have to wait a long time in order to get what are fairly simple evaluations. So, there is a lot of energy and a lot of other excitement in the Texarkana community that has come forth, unsolicited, wanting to be part of the project. It wasn’t part of our decision plan, but it’s certainly nice to have community leaders that are endorsing this project.”

Murphy says there should be around 120-125 jobs created from this project, some being part-time.

Arkansas Heart Hospital is currently hiring for all positions.

“We’re recruiting right now,” he said. “We’ve got numerous positions we need to fill. We would love to have highly-qualified, ambitious people to be part of our team.”

(Applications to work at the Texarkana clinic are available at jobs.arheart.com. Providers will begin seeing patients in the middle of March. Individuals interested in making appointments may call 903-336-6900 or visit arheart.com/Texarkana online.)


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