Podcast Summary

Podcast: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Episode: Rebuilding Pediatric Heart Care and Expanding Access at Manning Family Children’s with Matt Timmons
Host: Chris Sosa
Guest: Matt Timmons, Senior Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Manning Family Children’s, New Orleans
Date: February 19, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode explores the journey of Manning Family Children’s in New Orleans as it rebuilds its pediatric heart center, expands access to specialized care across Louisiana and Mississippi, and scales innovative community health initiatives. Matt Timmons shares candid insights on overcoming adversity, organizational priorities, the challenges of funding, and impactful patient stories that showcase the interconnection between healthcare and education.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction to Manning Family Children’s Hospital (00:14–01:29)

• Institutional Overview:
  • 263-bed, stand-alone comprehensive children’s hospital; the only one of its kind in Louisiana.
  • Part of the LCMC Health system, with 30 locations across Louisiana and parts of Mississippi.
  • Unwavering commitment to serving all children, regardless of their family’s ability to pay.
  • Includes a dedicated 51-bed behavioral hospital, providing full-spectrum behavioral and mental health services.

Major 2025 Initiative: Rebuilding the Heart Center (01:48–04:49)

• Focus: Overcoming adversity after physician and surgeon turnover led to operational and cultural challenges in the pediatric heart center.
• Approach:
  • Undertook an extensive “listening tour”—one-on-one discussions, rounding, focus groups, and an anonymous survey to identify root causes.
  • Formation of a task force to develop and execute a complex action plan.
  • Emphasis on rebuilding culture and regaining operational strength through focused, pragmatic actions.
• Outcomes:
  • Successful physician recruitment.
  • Growth in patient volumes and service quality.
  • Notable improvement in team morale and a return to a positive workplace culture, validated by a follow-up staff survey.

Notable Quote:

“I spent several months... 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... 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.”
— Matt Timmons (03:06)

Looking Ahead to 2026: Strategic Priorities and Challenges (05:15–09:15)

• Facility Master Plan:
  • Recognizes the hospital is “bursting at the seams,” with a need to plan for the next decade of growth and invest in campus expansion.
• Service Line Initiatives:
  • Continued emphasis on strengthening the heart program.
  • Major investments in the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, especially for the sickle cell population.
  • Construction of a new 60-bed NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) to meet increasing demand.
• Community Programs:
  • Scaling up the “Thrive Kids” school-based health program, which blends behavioral and physical health services for students.
  • Challenge: Navigating complex public funding sources and partnerships to drive sustainable expansion.
• Overarching Headwind:
  • Heavy reliance (70% of patients) on Medicaid funding, making state and federal policy decisions critical to growth and service maintenance.

Notable Quote:

“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... we're embarking construction will start next month on a brand new 60 bed NICU to accommodate our growth there.”
— Matt Timmons (05:31)

The Hardest Initiative: Expanding and Sustaining School-Based Health (10:05–12:25)

• Thrive Kids Program Origins & Impact:
  • Launched in 2020 with one staff member; now 100 FTEs, reaching 100,000 children.
  • Critical to New Orleans schools, delivering wraparound health services where kids are: at school.
• Major Challenge:
  • Thrives on diverse but unstable funding sources—risk of cutbacks.
  • Advocacy is essential: balancing expansion with sustainability and intensive engagement with legislative stakeholders is “probably the most challenging thing we have.”

Notable Quote:

“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... But it is at major risk of loss of funding.”
— Matt Timmons (10:38)

Storytelling for Advocacy: The Stefania Example (12:25–14:17)

• Impact Illustration:
  • Real-world example of a student, Stefania, whose academic and behavioral challenges were linked to underlying health conditions, all addressed through Thrive Kids.
  • The confluence of behavioral health, vision, and hearing issues shows how proactive, in-school healthcare can change life trajectories.
• Advocacy Approach:
  • Sharing individual success stories simplifies the ask to policymakers and funders.

Notable Quote:

“There's a young girl, her name's a Stefania... 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... She's thriving.”
— Matt Timmons (12:52)

Spotlight on Cancer/Blood Disorders & Sickle Cell Innovation (14:54–16:31)

• Program Highlights:
  • Only accredited pediatric stem cell transplant program in Louisiana.
  • Only program in the Gulf South approved for gene therapy for sickle cell disease.
  • Serving a large, regionally unique patient population—including neighboring states—enabled by their capabilities.
• Future Outlook:
  • Positioning Manning Family Children’s as a regional and national leader in innovative, life-changing pediatric care.

Notable Quote:

“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.”
— Matt Timmons (15:07)

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Matt Timmons on the Heart Center Rebuild:
  “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.” (04:30)

• Funding Challenges & Medicaid:
  “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.” (08:39)

• On the Challenges of Scaling Thrive Kids:
  “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.” (11:06)

• On Regional Innovation:
  “We're, we're on the early, you know, we're in the early phase of that and it's really fun to watch... 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.” (15:32)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction & Hospital Overview: 00:14–01:29
• 2025 Heart Center Rebuild: 01:48–04:49
• 2026 Strategic Priorities: 05:15–09:15
• Biggest 2026 Challenge (School Health): 10:05–12:25
• School-Based Health Success Story: 12:25–14:17
• Cancer/Blood Disorder/Sickle Cell Program: 14:54–16:31

Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is candid, optimistic, and focused on both strategic vision and the real-world impact of pediatric health interventions. Timmons’s deep commitment to access, community engagement, and evidence-based program growth shines through, as does an eagerness to advocate for sustainable funding and regional innovation. The intertwining of education and healthcare, as embodied in Thrive Kids, emerges as a central theme.

For those involved in pediatric health systems, community health, or healthcare administration, this episode provides an in-depth look at high-impact organizational recovery, growth strategies, and the lasting value of patient-centered advocacy.