Becker’s Healthcare Podcast Expanding Access and Advancing Rural Health at Arkansas Children's with Jamie Wiggins
Feb 27, 2026
Jamie Wiggins, EVP and COO at Arkansas Children's with 30 years in pediatric nursing and leadership. He talks about streamlining access that drove record patient growth. He describes frontline-driven culture change and tech fixes that simplified care. He outlines a five-year plan to boost rural pediatric care and chronic disease hubs, plus progress on a national opioid research center.
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Seamless Front Door Drove Record Patient Growth
- Arkansas Children's streamlined scheduling and optimized provider templates to create a seamless front door for patients.
- That work drove a record year: nearly 200,000 unique patients seen, the highest in the organization's history.
Frontline Listening Is Key To Culture Change
- Culture change must be driven from the frontline by listening to clinicians and staff about barriers.
- Jamie Wiggins emphasized that complexity and regulatory responses can unintentionally create navigation barriers that frontline teams can help remove.
Actively Build Pipelines To Attract Pediatric Talent
- Invest in talent pipelines and create an academic, clinical environment that attracts pediatric subspecialists.
- Also build technical role pipelines and equip staff with customer-service skills for a friendliest hospital mindset.