Two leading children’s hospitals — UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, part of UCLA Health, and Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital Long Beach, part of MemorialCare Health System — announced today their intent to form a strategic affiliation that brings together their academic, clinical and research expertise, and resources to enhance children’s health care services in Southern California.
The two organizations, which share similar missions and values, plan to establish a wider geographic pediatric collaboration that strengthens and broadens their ability to offer the highest-quality, patient- and family-centered care to their respective and shared communities. In addition to working together with physicians, patients and families, the collaboration will work closely with employers, health plans, public health agencies and other organizations to offer children and families high-quality and compassionate care close to home.
The UCLA Mattel–Miller Children’s Health alliance plans to focus on growing pediatric specialty care and the network of pediatricians and pediatric specialists available in the community, adding more outpatient facilities, expanding efforts to manage the health of children, and addressing other opportunities that offer families easier access to highly specialized children’s health services.
With UC Irvine Health, the organizations intend to collaboratively expand their pediatric residency and medical education programs, as well as their nationally recognized centers of excellence for clinical education of residents and fellows in pediatric medicine. This includes residency rotations for pediatric experiences in related medical and surgical specialties, as well as the establishment of medical and surgical fellowship training programs. UC Irvine Health and Miller Children’s long-standing pediatric residency and teaching relationship will continue and be integrated into the pediatric collaboration.
“We are extremely pleased at the opportunity to work with Miller Children’s leadership, physicians and staff to expand access to care to more children throughout Southern California,” said Johnese Spisso, president of UCLA Health and CEO of UCLA Hospital System. “This pediatric collaboration will enhance our ability to deliver the right care at the right time for all patients.”
Through joint strategic planning and an expansion of services, both organizations will leverage existing expertise at Miller Children’s and complementary specialty and acute care services from UCLA Mattel to bolster existing programs, further grow clinical and research programs and identify opportunities for future growth of community-based facilities and services.
