← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Rebuilding Pediatric Heart Care and Expanding Access at Manning Family Children’s with Matt Timmons
00:17:01
Loading summary
Transcript18 lines
- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm Chris Sosa, your host, and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Matt Timmons. He's senior vice president and chief operating officer of Manning Family Children's in New Orleans. Matt, thank you for joining us today.
- [00:12]
B
Chris, good to see you again. Thanks for having me.
- [00:14]
A
Yeah. You're a longtime guest of the Becker's Healthcare Podcast, and we're always happy to have repeat guests such as yourself. But just for those members of our listening audience who might not be familiar with you or Manning Family Children's, can you take a little time to let us know a little bit about yourself and the organization?
- [00:33]
B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So. So, as you mentioned, I'm the chief operating officer here at Manning Family Children's. Manning Family Children's is a 263 bed, freestanding comprehensive children's hospital located right here in beautiful New Orleans, Louisiana. We're part of an aid hospital system known as LCMC Health. We are the only children's hospital in our system. We are the only comprehensive children's hospital in the entire state of Louisiana. We provide care to all children, regardless of their family's ability to pay. Some other interesting notes about Manning Family Children's. We have a 51 bed behavioral hospital, and that also comes with kind of a complete wraparound set of mental and behavioral health programs and services to support this, you know, this need for these patients. And outside of our main campus, we have 30 locations sprinkled really across the state of Louisiana, some into Mississippi, western Mississippi, really trying to make sure we're bringing access to pediatric specialists closer to where our patients live.
- [01:29]
A
Gotcha. Thanks for laying that out for us, Matt. So off the top here, let's look a little bit back at 2025. You guys had, you got a new name, so you're working on brand application and things like that, but let us know. So what would you say is the most important initiative that you led last year and let us know about the results.
- [01:49]
B
Yeah, great question. Yeah, 2025 was a big year for us. You mentioned, and I know we talked about it last time, we changed our brand, changed our name, and so spent a lot of time on that. And that was a huge part of 2025 and something that was a great experience for me. It's the first time I'd ever been through it in my career. And so that was fun to learn. But when I think about that was very important. So I don't want to. To take away from the importance when I think about things that I specifically was really focused on in my role. One of the areas that I have responsibility for here is our heart center. And in late 2024, our heart center suffered some, really, just kind of faced some adversity. We had some physician and surgeon turnover, really some kind of unfortunate, really strange situations that really impacted key areas within the heart center and led to some market headwinds that just, it impacted that service line, the volumes and the culture. And so we really saw like, you know, 2025 needed to be the year of the heart center so we could get it back up to the, you know, to the prominent heart center that, that it, it had been before. So I spent a lot of time and I, you know, really the first part of 2025, I spent several months and I kind of went on a listening tour. I one on one discussions, I did lots of rounding, focus group sessions with all the different team members. We even did an anonymous survey, really trying to understand what's going on, where are the challenges? Why, you know, asking our experts in the heart center, why? Why are volumes decreasing? What are things we need to be doing? Where are the, you know, where are the blind spots? Got great feedback. And so then we just use a really kind of pragmatic approach, take the feedback. Worked with a task force and we developed a very large, very complex action plan. And we spent 2025 executing that action plan. And you know, I can look back now, now that we're, you know, just starting 2026, we've had great physician recruitment. We've seen growth in our volumes in those key areas. The program is as strong as it ever was. And we did a follow up survey, said, okay, we've been doing all these things, we've been working with y' all as a team. How are we doing? Like, what's the culture? How are people feeling? And I was so pleased. I mean, it was like a end of year gift for me and really for the team that worked so hard on this is that, you know, really our heart center team members overwhelmingly provided positive feedback and everybody really felt like we were going back in the right direction. So I know it's kind of a specific thing, but it was really important. The heart center is obviously one of the most critical service lines, again being the only comprehensive children's hospital in the state of Louisiana. Our children here need this and we needed this program to be strong. And so we focused on it, really executed on an action plan focused on culture. And I'm really proud of what our team has been able to do. Just in the matter of the 12 months of 2025, specifics are great.
- [04:49]
A
Matt, do not ever apologize or be wary about sharing those with us. We're so glad you did. And let us know about the test steps that you took to strengthen your heart program. That's fantastic. All right, so let's turn around and look at 2026. As you said, we're just about a month into the year but still plenty to go. So when you look at 2026, what would you say are the big priorities and the headwinds that you're focused on for this year and any tailwinds if there are any worth noting?
- [05:16]
B
Yeah, so I think priority wise, of course we have a long list of priorities but one of the important ones, one of the bigger ones that we're looking at is in my role in particular is doing a facility master plan. We have a beautiful hospital located right in the heart of New Orleans, right on the Mississippi river at uptown. Gorgeous oak trees, it's amazing campus. But as I know many other hospitals face regularly, we've outgrown the space that we have. We have, you know, the need is more than the space, than what we can accommodate. So we're going to spend some dedicated time with some experts to help us understand what do we need to be planning for for the next 10 years, what does our growth look like and then, you know, brick and mortar structure wise, what does that mean for us and where do we need to be investing capital dollars to grow to ensure we can continue to care for all the kids in the state of Louisiana, Mississippi who need us. So that's one big one. I will also say there's some service line specific priorities that are big for us. Of course we're not done with heart, so I would say that's still on the priority list. But we have a lot of growth and kind of specific initiatives research wise related to our center for cancer and blood disorders. It's a growing area for us and so specifically we talk about our sickle cell population and so we have a lot of priorities kind of tied to that. And then, you know, last but certainly not least, we are, we have a sort of finished the design process but we're going to be building a brand new nicu. We've been over capacity for almost two years and so we know that that's the first priority when we talk about our campus expansion. So we're, we're embarking construction will start next month on a brand new 60 bed NICU to accommodate our growth there and then outside A priority outside the four walls of the hospital, if you will, which, you know, it's something that for many family children is really a part of our DNA, is our kind of hand in hand involvement with, with our community and some of the different community programs that we partner with. We have a school based health program called Thrive Kids and it's, you know, really kind of the in school behavioral and overall health program. And we need to scale that up. And so one of our priorities is working through a plan to scale that up to reach even more children across the greater New Orleans area and even really all across the state of Louisiana. And that's complicated because it involves public funding sources and multiple players. So it's kind of a challenging priority. And so I don't, I wouldn't call it a headwind, but that's certainly one of the challenges with that, that being one of our priorities in terms of headwinds. I think, you know, and you probably, this is, you're probably hearing this from everybody you talk to, but balancing our priorities and our growth and our focus on providing care to kids with all the just continued uncertainties around funding sources. We're in an interesting community here. 70% of our patient population that we serve depends on Medicaid. And so Medicaid, you know, the federal and state decisions that around Medicaid funding have a profound impact on us. And so it's sort of always a headwind, but seems to be a bit stronger of a headwind, you know, currently with some unknowns. And so as we plan our growth, we plan our investments, our capital investments, we plan our, you know, again, growing our school programs, we have to balance that out with trying to navigate those uncertainties around funding. And I would say so that's kind of the, that's kind of the headwind with every single initiative that we have is to make sure that we're delicate and doing that delicate dance as much as we can.
- [09:15]
A
Yeah, delicate dance is a great way to put it, Matt. And as you said, I think a lot of leaders in your position can relate to that task ahead of you. But it's something I know that you all take on with a great deal of pride and initiative and you know, you know that you're going to get job done one way or the other, right? So with that in mind, you, you've listed off our audience a great many things that you have coming ahead and they all sound terrific. I think they're going to benefit not only your organization but your, your population of patients tremendously. So when you look at maybe one or two of those initiatives that you have coming. What would you say is the hardest thing you have going on you have to do in the coming year? And it doesn't mean you're not looking forward to it, but it's just something, you know, that you really gotta, you know, have a high degree of focus to accomplish.
- [10:06]
B
Yeah, I would kind of go back to our school based program. We started this program in 2020. It started with, you know, one FTE and kind of a dream. Our CEO, it was his idea, kind of his brainchild and it's grown rapidly. 100 FTEs we're serving, reaching 100,000 kids and again it's kind of wraparound services, ensuring, taking, you know, getting kids, reaching kids in the schools where they're at and ensuring they have access to the specialists or the providers that they need. Whether it's again, behavioral health or any really any other health problem. It's been so critical to the city of New Orleans and the school districts that we're working with. It has been such an important part of the community in, you know, just in the short five years that it's been around. But it is at major risk of loss of funding. The funding sources are many, but they're all sort of up in the air. And so we see that as probably the most challenging thing we have is figure out how we make sure we sustain what we have today in terms of the schools that we're in and the team that we have providing this care to those kids in school. But then also as I mentioned, we want to scale that up. This is a program that needs to be everywhere across the state of Louisiana and every school across the greater New Orleans area that we see as probably the hardest thing to do is figure out how we scale up, how we access, provide access to more kids while also having all those difficult conversations with city and state legislators and even up to the federal level and really advocating for the children of the state of Louisiana.
- [11:43]
A
You're going to spend a lot of time on the phone if you're not already. I take that back. I know you're already spending a lot of time on the phone for all those important reasons that you mentioned. But yeah, thanks for as always laying that out for audience and just, just how you're going to get there because I know it's not easy, but I know like I said, you're looking forward to it as well. I am curious though. So when you're in the middle of a project like the Thrive kids and given how Important it is to New Orleans community. So when you're out there selling is maybe not the right word, but trying to convince others how important this is. Where does your mind go to when. When asked that question?
- [12:26]
B
You know, we're. We. We have so many individual student slash patient stories that make it an easy. It's an easy story to tell. Like, there's no. Anyone with a heart will tell you. Like, gosh, this is important and we have to figure out how to fund it. So that's. That's the easy part. Right. Is sure, I can tell. There's a, you know, there's a young girl, her name's a Stefania. And because of our program, she was really having trouble in school in terms of her behavior, in terms of her attendance. And through this program and the experts that are part of this program working with these kids, we discovered not only did she have some sort of mental behavioral health challenges, she also had poor eyesight and poor hearing. So we worked with her to get her glasses and get her hearing aid and then focus on some of the behavioral mental components. This was a couple years ago. She's thriving. She, you know, she otherwise is probably a child who, you know, we saw on a trajectory to drop out of school and not, you know, not complete her education. So there's about 100 million stories now. That's probably a bit of an exaggeration, but we have so many stories like that where it's the. It's going into the schools, getting kids where they're at, meeting kids where they're at, and getting them the services and healthcare that they need and keeping them in school, helping them stay educated, keeping them healthy, preventing them from coming to the hospital. And so that story is pretty fun to tell and easy for people to understand. And so I'm confident that we're going to find ways to fund this program and it's going to grow the way we want it to because it is such an easy story to tell. But it is, as you said, we are on the phone and in face to face discussions with all of our advocacy experts and legislators, trying to make sure that every kid has the access to so they can be another story like the one I just shared.
- [14:17]
A
Gotcha. No, thank you so much for sharing that, Matt. And I think it really shines a light on the interconnectivity between education and health care, which I think is becoming much more of an initiative that health systems like yourself want to take on, and rightfully so, because I think it's, as you know, it's beneficial to patients in so many ways. Lastly, Matt, you mentioned so many opportunities that Manning Children's, Manning Family Children's has for growth. Are there any that you want to spotlight now in addition to the Thrive Kids program?
- [14:55]
B
Absolutely. So one. And I think I briefly mentioned this, but I, I want to highlight the work that the team is doing because I think it's, I think it's probably one of our biggest opportunities for growth and that's in our center for cancer and blood disorders and specifically sickle cell patients. So we have a high number of sickle cell patients in this region, high population and we are the only accredited program in Louisiana for pediatric stem cell transplant. Also the only program in Louisiana and really the Gulf south, approved for gene therapy treatment, which is life changing, life saving. Both of those are. And so we are, we've seen tremendous growth as we've grown that program. And I just, it's, it's, I mean it feels, you know, it's such, so cool to be a part of this. We're like medical, you know, history. We're, we're on the early, you know, we're in the early phase of that and it's really fun to watch and you know, nice to see that the, again that Gulf south from Louisiana, Mississippi, even into parts of Alabama and the Florida panhandle, geographically closer to New Orleans than many of the other major metropolitan areas. And being able to provide these life changing, life altering, truly life saving services for our cancer patients, but specifically our sickle cell patient population is amazing. Our team is fantastic and I believe that that's where maybe the next time we talk I'll be bragging about some major growth that we're seeing there because it's a fantastic program and something so much needed, especially for kids in this particular region of the country.
- [16:32]
A
I certainly hope so, Matt. That's the greatest reason as any to be proud of.
- [16:37]
B
Right?
- [16:37]
A
So, yeah. Matt, thank you so much for being on the podcast today and sharing everything going on. Well, a lot of things, maybe not everything, but so many of the great things going on down at Manning Family Children's. Yeah, we can't wait to see you when you're here in April for our conference and any other time from here after that.
- [16:53]
B
Thank you, Chris. I appreciate the invite to share a little bit more about what's going on here and I look forward to seeing you in April.