Nov. 17, 2023

Elevating children’s care – and a spirit of collaboration – for our region’s future

We made a monumental announcement this week about the future of pediatric care for our region. I was proud to join my friend David Argueta, president of Mercy Springfield Communities, as we announced that we are working on a first-of-its-kind collaboration to elevate children’s care across the board.

The need for expanded children’s care has been a topic of conversation in our community – especially among our clinicians – for a long time.

As you have likely heard, Mercy and CoxHealth issued a request for proposal (RFP), seeking a partner that is highly specialized in pediatric care. We want to align with a full-service pediatrics partner that can build on the established excellence of our own pediatrics teams.

We are at a unique point in the history of both of our organizations for this kind of partnership. Now, we are able to benefit from the relationships we have developed over the last few years to make that elevated service a reality.

The pandemic created an environment where people are more receptive to collaboration and outside-the-box thinking than ever before. The challenges of the last few years forced us to think dynamically, and they refocused us on what it truly means to provide better care for the community.

We are working in a new environment, and I know our region’s families will benefit from the collaboration journey we are beginning.

The vision

So what will that partnership look like? The service area covered by both of our health systems collectively includes approximately 225,000 children.

It’s a common vision among our clinicians that our community has an opportunity to elevate our care by exploring the potential of a new, standalone children’s hospital here in Springfield.

To that end, we are searching for a partner health system that has a national reputation for providing children’s care at an exceptional level.

By coming together, we can create economies of scale around our medical professionals – joining forces to attract and retain additional expertise to serve our communities. And, this is beyond Springfield and southwest Missouri. We believe people will travel from a decent distance outside our region to have access to our services going forward.

Community involvement

We are still in the early stages, but we want to get our community engaged and involved as soon as possible.

We are coming together to provide a service on behalf of our region, and we want our community members to have a say in the future of pediatric care. While we don’t have all the answers, we know we don’t want to be the only voices in this conversation.

That’s why CoxHealth and Mercy Springfield Communities will host a community forum at Jarrett Middle School on Wednesday, Dec. 13. Full details will be available soon.

Our goal is to build a creative process with a high level of collaboration with the community, not just between our health systems.

We want to hear from parents and families, groups that serve children, business leaders, and citizens who are interested in the future of pediatric care. We want to hear what is most important from our community.

We understand what best practice looks like, and we know the statistics suggest that we need a standalone pediatric hospital in our region.

It’s not a forgone conclusion, though, because we haven’t heard from our community. We are just beginning the process of seeking a national partner, who will also have a say in the final process.

When we select a partner, we will fuse their national best practices with everything we know about serving our community. And that knowledge runs deep: both Mercy and CoxHealth have served our region for more than a century.

There is a lot of excitement with this week’s announcement, and I am glad that people are engaging with our broad vision. I can’t wait to hear from our community members as they help us refine the vision of this project.

A new precedent for collaboration

As David and I made the announcement on Monday, we talked about how personally and professionally rewarding it is to see this take place. There are so many people who have brought this to fruition, and we both take a lot of pride in supporting an environment where those experts can do their best work.

We both have kids, and we can see personally how this will impact families in a significant way.

More broadly, we hope this sets a tone for years to come about how our organizations can come together and collaborate.

We are setting a new precedent, and I believe that, in the future, we will be able to point to this project as a catalyst for collaboration to improve many areas of care.

The journey we are embarking on will serve as a monument to a simple truth: When good people get together and do the right thing, exceptional things can happen.

We are going to define the future of pediatric care alongside local and national experts, and our community. Together, we will create a future that will make us all proud. I am eager to make the journey together!

Thank you for all you do,

Max

Direct Line from Max Buetow for 11/17/2023