Kentucky's two largest children's hospitals are joining forces to provide better pediatric care across the state.
University of Kentucky Children's Hospital in Lexington and Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville announced the partnership this morning. However, the hospitals will continue to operate independently.
The collaboration will allow more specialty pediatric practice. Stephen Williams is CEO of Norton Healthcare, which owns and operates Kosair. He tells Kentucky Public Radio the collaboration will allow more specialty practice in pediatrics.
“Being able to combine our volumes achieves a critical mass that better allows us to retain and recruit specialty pediatric positions to provide services both at the hospitals themselves as well as throughout Kentucky, through outreach clinics and so forth,” Williams says.
The partnership will build upon collaborations the two hospitals already have with their cancer and transplant programs.
“The bottom line is this is a partnership between the two children’s hospitals and we can do more together than we can separately,” Williams says. “Our goal is to continue to expand services, certainly allowing us to better compete with children’s hospitals in our border states.”
Williams says the collaboration will allow the hospitals to recruit more specialty pediatricians to treat Kentucky children with chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Kentucky has one of the highest rates of pediatric obesity in the nation, as well high rates of smoking, diabetes, and asthma among kids.
