Mercy President Eric Pianalto talks about what led him to healthcare and his hopes for the future
ROGERS, Ark. — Eric Pianalto, 41, started working at Mercy 25 years ago. His vision was clear: treat and value every person the same in Northwest Arkansas regardless of their ability to pay and regardless of where they came from, he said.
Pianalto’s connection to Northwest Arkansas goes back hundreds of years. Pianalto is from Tontitown, Arkansas, but his family has origins in Italy. The Pianalto sisters were part of the first wave of Italian immigrants to the United States in the 1890s. They came right after the Civil War when slavery was abolished. They worked in fields and did cheap labor, according to the Lakeport Plantation website.
“They were from the part of Italy that grew grapes, which is not the south and Delta by any means,” said James Arkins, friend and Mercy doctor. “They sent their priest Father Tony who came from Italy. Their father Tony went looking throughout the United States where they might move from that would be a similar geographic location where they could then raise grapes. They ended up in this place in Northwest Arkansas.”
The Pianaltos have lived in Northwest Arkansas ever since.
Pianalto had not planned to work in healthcare. His degree is in administrative management from the University of Arkansas. It was when he went to work for a physician who did occupational medicine and took care of injured workers that he realized healthcare was what he wanted to do. He said he thought he would stay in manufacturing and just help his boss for some time.
“I found that I really enjoyed healthcare,” he said. “I really enjoyed the aspect of helping people even though I wasn’t a healer. I was never strong in the sciences,” he said.
He said his work had a direct impact on people and he wanted to continue helping others, so he went to work at Mercy in 1994. His work at Mercy was not always glamorous. He had 13 jobs within the company over those 25 years. But he credits his work ethic that sets him apart.
“When opportunities came up, I raised my hand and got the chance to do those things. I failed at some. I was successful at others, so it just kept happening,” he said.
Arkins has been a member of the Mercy medical staff since 1976. He said he admires Eric for his ability to turn his visions for the hospital into reality.
“He’s a visionary, but he has the unique ability, which is rare, to take vision and put it into practice,” Arkins said. “You have visionaries who dream big dreams, but they can’t put them into practice. You have people who are pragmatic and can carry out things, but they aren’t necessarily visionary.”
Arkins said it is unique to have someone who can do both. “All you need to do is look at the growth of Mercy Northwest Arkansas and how the hospital has stepped up to recognize that.”
On April 27, 2016, Mercy announced plans to expand the hospital over the next five years.
The Mercy Hospital Tower opened Nov. 11 and is equipped with 36 cardiac inpatient beds, an expanded NICU and a Pediatrics and Women’s Services section. The tower added 150 rooms to a 200-bed hospital. Pianalto said it is about 75 percent more capacity than what the hospital had before.
A smaller campus in Springdale opened on Sept. 18, 2019. “It does not have hospital beds, but it has all the [other] services of a hospital. Imaging, emergency room, doctors are there – about 15 doctors. And then we built six other clinics throughout the year,” Pianalto said.
New physician offices have been opened since March 2017, according to the Mercy website. They include Internal Medicine, several primary care clinics, a 24/7 emergency room on Elm Springs in Springdale, and the Mercy Hospital Tower.
Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Nursing Officer, Charlotte Rankin said they are expanding a lot of needed services for the community.
“We found that after being in this hospital for 10 years we were at capacity with a couple of our larger service lines, such as cardiovascular lines. We had the opportunity to expand those areas as well as bring in new technology that can better serve the community,” Rankin said, “As well as some other service lines that we needed to expand on so that the folks in this community wouldn’t have to leave to go seek healthcare somewhere else.”
“Over the next 10 years, I think we’ll see rapidly changing the delivery of healthcare; how people access healthcare, how they enter into the system,” Pianalto said. “I liken it to the iPhone. Before we had the iPhone, we didn’t have any concept of what it might be. And I think healthcare is will be the same way 10 years from now. I think we’ll look back in 10 years and say, ‘I can’t believe we ever did it that way’ or ‘I can’t believe we didn’t have this technology or this wearable device that would notify me if I had a problem.’”
Pianalto said the Northwest Arkansas area has been growing since the 1990s and healthcare has “always chased the growth from behind.” There were access problems and other services that were not offered here that healthcare could not keep up with the growing need.
“Because of the way healthcare is funded or paid for, it was always going to lag behind unless someone made a big investment to try to get ahead of the growth,’ he said.
Pianalto cares a lot about his staff and making the hospital a good place to work for everyone. Arkins said Pianalto’s door is always open and the people at Mercy are “pro-doctor.” He said Pianalto is very responsive to the needs of the medical staff and community.
“Oftentimes in hospitals, there can be even what is almost like an adversary relationship between administration and medical staff. A lot of this (bumping fists) goes on. Of all the hospitals I’ve been involved in that is not here,” Arkins said.
Megan Wilson 