Paragould, AR – JonesboroRightNow.com – Officials gathered Friday morning to celebrate the recent merger of Arkansas Methodist Medical Center (AMMC) with Baptist Memorial Health Care, as well as share the next steps for the hospital.

The two organizations announced plans in April 2025 to merge and finalized the merger on Feb. 28. All of AMMC’s assets, including the 129-bed hospital, the 91-bed Chateau on the Ridge Assisted Living Facility, and eight medical clinics across Northeast Arkansas. All of the roughly 500 AMMC employees were also transferred to Baptist Memorial Health Care.

During Friday’s press conference, hospital officials announced AMMC would be renamed as Baptist Memorial Hospital-Paragould. NEA Baptist in Jonesboro will be a sister facility.

“As we merge, our responsibility is not to lose the Arkansas Methodist Medical Center culture, but to strengthen it. We will honor what has made AMMC strong, while embracing the innovation, the success, and the scale of Baptist Memorial. Our goal is alignment without erasing any roots, progress without losing purpose,” said Melanie Edens, newly named CEO and administrator of the Paragould hospital, during the news conference.

Hospital leadership also outlined the next steps for the hospital in the merger’s aftermath, which include going live with Epic on Nov. 1. Epic is one of the most widely used digital healthcare records software in the country, used by physicians to access a patient’s medical history, record treatments, schedule appointments, send prescriptions, and manage billing.

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Other priorities include recruiting physicians and implementing Telehealth capabilities for key specialties. Edens told JRN these specialties include cardiology, neurology, ear nose and throat, and gastrointestinal.

“It’s really more about having the right resources available to the emergency room positions. Today, it’s challenging without key specialists for emergency room positions to be able to have the immediate resources they need to maybe care for those patients,” Edens told JRN. “So, even if it’s a Telehealth option, where we’re able to have a neurologist that is available via Telehealth, they can see that patient via video and give feedback to the emergency room.”

The hospital also plans to expand its health fairs, participate in more Chamber of Commerce events, and support community organizations, such as the Greene County Community Fund.

Matthew Miller, president of insurance company Lumen Select and chair of AMMC’s board, said the merger stemmed from a 2023 meeting in which the board felt the need to find a strong partner for the future. He said AMMC wanted a partner that had a commitment to quality healthcare, strong financials to support expenditures related to strengthening the community’s healthcare, a track record of service, expansion and growth, a not-for-profit alignment, and experience in mergers.

Baptist Memorial Health Care’s most recent merger was in 2025 with OCH Regional Medical Center in Starkville, MS. It also completed a merger with Anderson Regional Health System in Meridian, MS, in 2024.

“Healthcare has a lot of ups and downs, and from the perspective of an independent hospital, it’s just difficult to stand on our own with the resources that are available,” Miller told JRN. “We knew we needed to find a stronger partner to help us bolster all that. And so that was the main reason for that (the merger), so we had sustainable healthcare in this community for generations to come.”

Miller added that swapping out the hospital’s signage, improving technology, and facility upgrades were estimated to take 12-24 months.

With this merger, Baptist Memorial now operates three hospitals in Arkansas, in Craighead, Greene, and Crittenden counties. It operates hospitals, clinics, urgent cares, and other services in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi. It employs over 24,000 people.

“On behalf of 24,000 people, we pledge to wake up every day and be a part of this vision that we’ve set for ourselves, which is to deliver an expert system of healthcare in the Mid-South where love abounds so that God can do the impossible,” said Jason Little, president and CEO of Baptist Memorial Health Care at the news conference. “We’re gonna get up every day and do that for Paragould, and I believe we’re going to make you proud.”

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