MAY 17, 2002 | Of the five major campuses in the University of Arkansas System, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), along with its affiliates, generates the largest economic impact – more than $1 billion in direct impact and more than $3 billion in indirect impact.

These figures are based on an economic impact analysis by the Institute for Economic Advancement at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
UAMS, Arkansas’s only academic health center, trains physicians, nurses, pharmacists, scientists, and other health care professionals; provides inpatient and outpatient clinical care in a network of facilities; conducts scientific research; and delivers a wide variety of services around the state. (See more about statewide services.) UAMS is comprised of five colleges (health related professions, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and public health), a graduate school that confers doctoral degrees in the basic sciences, a teaching hospital and clinics, including several world-renowned clinical programs, and a network of Area Health Education Centers (AHECs) around the state that provide health care and learning sites for young physicians receiving specialized training in family and community medicine. Most of the physicians at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System are actually faculty of the UAMS College of Medicine; those hospitals are affiliates of UAMS.

Although UAMS is a part of the state’s flagship university system, only 14 percent of its revenue comes from the state. The balance is income from health care services, external research funding, and payments for contracted services and programs. Contrary to popular belief, tuition is a very small portion of the university’s revenue: only about 2 percent.
 
As well as being essential health care providers in their communities, employees and graduates of UAMS are important as consumers, investors, and taxpayers. The institution’s payroll was more than $287 million in fiscal year 2001; employees paid more than $13.8 million in income taxes to the state and $80.8 million in income taxes to the federal government.

UAMS is the sole provider in the state of physicians, advanced practice nurses, nurse educators, and pharmacists. It is also a major provider of allied health professionals in 13 disciplines and research scientists in 12 fields. Because most health-care salaries are above the average, these stable, well-paying jobs boost local economies.

Current construction of needed additional space for patient care, teaching, and research is pumping another $93 million into the state’s economy, with some of the funds coming from the state’s share of the nationwide tobacco settlement and some from private philanthropy. (See more about current construction on the UAMS campus.)

UAMS’s research program has grown from $5.5 million in annual external funding in 1984 to more than $76 million this year. (See more about current research.) University researchers have obtained 70 patents for inventions or applications, with about 100 others pending. Researchers also have 28 license agreements, with some or all likely to generate additional economic activity in Arkansas, and to earn income for UAMS, in the future.

Services to the state are an important part of the UAMS mission. The university’s regional programs, including the Rural Hospital Program and the network of AHECs and satellite centers on aging, foster better health and health care across the state. Funding from the state’s share of the nationwide tobacco settlement has been critical in several of these areas, including establishment of the new College of Public Health, creation of a seventh AHEC in Helena to serve east Arkansas, and support for the network of satellites of the Donald W. Reynolds Center on Aging.