University Of Arkansas For Medical Sciences receives $15M Congressional Directives grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration

Facilities and equipment for the expansion and renovation of the uams labor and delivery unit - the University Of Arkansas For Medical Sciences (uams), the only academic health sciences center in Arkansas, will use a $15,000,000 congressionally directed award under HRSA-26-107 to expand maternal health labor and delivery (l&d) capacity on the uams campus in little rock, Arkansas. Uams will renovate the first floor of the former radiation oncology center (the shuffield building) at 4130 shuffield drive into a new inpatient l&d unit comprising seven (7) labor and delivery triage rooms, seven (7) labor, delivery, and recovery (ldr) rooms, one (1) cesarean delivery operating room, one (1) neonatal intensive care unit (nicu) resuscitation suite, and full clinical support, circulation, and unit support spaces. Arkansas has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the united states. Forty-five of Arkansas’ seventy-five counties are designated as maternity care deserts, and the Arkansas maternal mortality review committee has found that nine of every ten maternal deaths in Arkansas are preventable with timely access to maternal care. Uams is home to central Arkansas’ only maternal-fetal medicine specialists and operates the existing uams l&d unit and the 58-bed uams nicu on the same campus. Uams has outgrown its current l&d footprint in the ward tower and is unable to serve the volume of rural Arkansas mothers and infants referred for high-risk pregnancy and delivery care. The renovation will deliver approximately 6,900 gross square feet of new l&d clinical space within the existing shuffield building footprint. No expansion of the building envelope, no exterior site work, and no ground disturbance outside the existing footprint will occur. Architectural and engineering services will be procured through a standalone qualifications-based selection (qbs) process under the Arkansas architects, engineers, and land surveyors selection act and the federal brooks act. General construction services will be procured through design-bid-build competitive bidding under the Arkansas procurement law. Moveable clinical equipment, information technology and audiovisual systems, telecommunications, and infant security systems will be procured competitively under the same state procurement framework and federal procurement standards at 2 cfr 200.317 through 200.327. The federal period of performance will be september 1, 2026 through august 31, 2028. Federal interest in the renovated facility and equipment will be managed under 2 cfr 200.316 and 2 cfr 200.313, including recordation of the notice of federal interest in the pulaski county, Arkansas real property records, equipment tagging and tracking in the uams fixed-asset system, and sf-428 tangible personal property report submission at closeout. Uams has no other federal grants, awards, or applications that overlap with the construction or equipment scope proposed in this application.