Chancellor Outlines Future Goals during Talk Business Interview

By Ben Boulden

During a recent appearance on the Sunday morning television program Talk Business & Politics with Roby Brock, broadcast statewide, Patterson said UAMS is financially sound and positioned to expand and improve health care in the state. To see the interview, go to Talk Business & Politics.

“Our budget for the year that just began this month is balanced for the first time in at least four years,” he said. “I think it’s a conservative budget. I think there’s more upside than downside. We’ll be back in growth mode.”

Through its Center for Distance Health and its Regional Campuses, UAMS has been an innovator in telemedicine as it has also strengthened its presence statewide. Patterson envisions further expansion on that foundation.

“Digital health is going to be a big wave of the future,” Patterson said during his television interview. “We will be talking a lot about how UAMS will be part of bringing the state of Arkansas into the digital health era. Improving access, making sure people have the ability to see physicians without undue hardship.”

New technology also can help clinicians use their time even more efficiently. That includes even more UAMS physicians on even more new campuses in Arkansas cities and towns.

“We currently have eight regional campuses,” Patterson said. “I would like to see that number increase to about 12 or so over the next few years.”

UAMS has had a regional campus in northwest Arkansas for a decade, and the chancellor said he wants to take health care there to a higher level to keep pace with that region’s population growth and changing health care needs.

Patterson also said he wants to see the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute achieve National Cancer Institute designation and grow the UAMS stroke and trauma programs.