At Arkansas Heart Hospital, we strive to provide extraordinary care to our patients. Our nurses play a critical role in our patients’ time at AHH, and they go above and beyond to deliver that extraordinary care every day. What sets our nurses apart is the relationships they build not only with our patients, but with our physicians as well.

At AHH, we have a low nurse-to-patient ratio, meaning that we have more nurses available to accommodate whatever a patient may need. While physicians have surgeries, clinics and procedures that only allow them to spend part of the day with patients, nurses can be with the patients all day. They provide constant care to the patient and collaborate with physicians to let them know what the patient needs. All of our rooms are critical care rooms and can also be used as intensive care rooms, meaning that a patient can efficiently be treated no matter the urgency of their needs.

Patient-focused care is one of our most important values, and the close nurse-physician relationship helps to ensure that a patient’s experience is comfortable, effective and easy for them. We work to bring all the care we can to a patient – our nurses are the same ones who draw blood or bring x-ray units to a patient’s room rather than sending them elsewhere to have additional work done. AHH pioneered a vision for patient-focused care 23 years ago, and it’s since become an expectation in medicine.

We work with various nursing schools to find the best of the best for our patients. We seek out nurses with good personalities and the right skill sets to fit our patients’ needs. We’ve taken some unique approaches in nurse recruitment, and we’ve found that word of mouth is typically the best method. At Arkansas Heart, we truly treat each other like family – the friendly, personal culture makes it easy for our nurses to show the same friendliness to our patients.

However, hospitals nationwide are experiencing a nursing shortage. It can be a difficult job and requires the right kind of person to perform it. There will always be a need for nurses, as there will always be patients who need care. Though AHH is a smaller organization, we are a busy organization, and there is always a need for more nurses on our staff. Organization wide, Arkansas Heart Hospital has about 360 RNs and LPNs, with even more APNs. We’ll soon need even more nurses for our Encore Medical Center, opening in 2020.

To learn about the nursing positions we have available or for more information about Encore, visit jobs.arheart.com.