Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Rebuilding Pediatric Heart Care and Expanding Access at Manning Family Children’s with Matt Timmons

Transcript

Rebuilding Pediatric Heart Care and Expanding Access at Manning Family Children’s with Matt Timmons · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm Chris
• 0:02
  Sosa, your host, and I'm thrilled to be
• 0:03
  joined today by Matt Timmons. He's senior vice
• 0:05
  president and chief operating officer of Manning Family
• 0:08
  Children's in New Orleans.
• 0:09
  Matt, thank you for joining us today.
• 0:11
  Chris, good to see you again. Thanks for
• 0:13
  having me. Yeah. You're a long time guest
• 0:15
  of the Becker's Healthcare podcast, and we're always
• 0:18
  happy to have,
• 0:19
  repeat guests such as yourself. But just for
• 0:22
  those
• 0:22
  members of our listening audience who might not
• 0:24
  be familiar with you or Manny Family Children's,
• 0:28
  can you take a little time and let
• 0:29
  us know a little bit about yourself and
• 0:31
  the organization?
• 0:32
  Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, so as you mentioned,
• 0:35
  I'm the the chief operating officer here at
• 0:36
  Manning Family Children's. Manning Family Children's is a
• 0:39
  263
• 0:40
  bed, freestanding,
• 0:42
  comprehensive children's hospital located right here in beautiful
• 0:45
  New Orleans, Louisiana.
• 0:46
  We're part of an eight hospital system known
• 0:48
  as LCMC Health. We are the only children's
• 0:51
  hospital in our system.
• 0:53
  We are the only comprehensive children's hospital in
• 0:55
  the entire state of Louisiana. We provide care
• 0:58
  to all children regardless of their, family's ability
• 1:00
  to pay.
• 1:01
  Some other interesting notes about Manning Family Children's.
• 1:04
  We have a 51 bed behavioral hospital,
• 1:07
  and that also comes with a kind of
• 1:09
  a complete wrap around
• 1:11
  set of mental and behavioral health programs and
• 1:13
  services to support this, you know, this need
• 1:15
  for these patients.
• 1:16
  And outside of our main campus, we have
• 1:18
  30 locations sprinkled really across the state of
• 1:20
  Louisiana, some into Mississippi, Western Mississippi,
• 1:24
  really trying to make sure we're bringing access
• 1:25
  to pediatric specialists closer to to where our
• 1:27
  patients live.
• 1:29
  Gotcha. Thanks for laying that out for us,
• 1:31
  Matt.
• 1:32
  So
• 1:33
  off the top here, let's look a little
• 1:35
  bit back at 2025.
• 1:36
  I know you guys had you got a
• 1:38
  new name, so you're working on brand application
• 1:40
  and things like that.
• 1:41
  But let us know. So what would you
• 1:43
  say is the most important initiative that you
• 1:45
  led last year? And let us know about
• 1:47
  the results.
• 1:48
  Yeah.
• 1:49
  Great question. Yeah. 2025
• 1:51
  was a big year for us. You mentioned,
• 1:53
  and I know we talked about it last
• 1:54
  time,
• 1:55
  we changed our brand, changed our name, and
• 1:58
  so spent a lot of time on that.
• 1:59
  And that was a huge part of 2025
• 2:01
  and something that, you know, was a great
• 2:03
  experience for me. It's the first time I'd
• 2:04
  ever been through it, in my career, and
• 2:07
  so that was fun to learn. But
• 2:09
  when I think about, you know,
• 2:11
  and all that was very important. So I
• 2:13
  don't want to to take away from the
• 2:14
  importance. When I think about things that I
• 2:15
  specifically was really focused on in my role,
• 2:19
  one of the areas that I have responsibility
• 2:21
  for here is our heart center.
• 2:23
  And in late twenty twenty four, our heart
• 2:25
  center suffered some really,
• 2:28
  just kinda faced some adversity. We had some
• 2:30
  physician and surgeon turnover,
• 2:33
  really some kind of unfortunate, really strange,
• 2:36
  situations that really impacted key areas within the
• 2:39
  heart center and led to, and and and
• 2:41
  some market headwinds,
• 2:44
  that just it it impacted that service line,
• 2:46
  the volumes, and the culture.
• 2:48
  And so we really saw, like, you know,
• 2:50
  2025
• 2:51
  needed to be the year of the heart
• 2:52
  center so we could, get it back up
• 2:54
  to the, you know, to the prominent heart
• 2:55
  center that that it it had been before.
• 2:58
  So I spent a lot of time and
• 3:00
  I,
• 3:01
  you know, like, really the first part of
• 3:03
  2025,
• 3:03
  I spent several months and I kinda went
• 3:05
  on a listening tour. I,
• 3:07
  one on one discussions. I did lots of
• 3:09
  rounding, focus group sessions with all the different
• 3:11
  team members.
• 3:13
  We even did an anonymous survey, really trying
• 3:14
  to understand what's going on, where are the
• 3:16
  challenges,
• 3:18
  why you know,
• 3:19
  asking well, asking our experts in the heart
• 3:21
  center why. Why are our volumes decreasing? What
• 3:23
  are things we need to be doing? Where
• 3:24
  are the, you know, where are the blind
• 3:26
  spots?
• 3:27
  Got great feedback.
• 3:29
  And so then we just use a really
• 3:30
  kind of pragmatic approach, take the feedback,
• 3:33
  worked with a task force, and we developed
• 3:35
  a very large, very complex action plan, and
• 3:38
  we spent 2025 executing that action plan.
• 3:42
  And, you know, I can look back now,
• 3:44
  now that we're, you know, just starting 2026.
• 3:47
  We've had great physician recruitment. We've seen growth
• 3:49
  in our volumes in those key areas.
• 3:52
  The program is is as strong as it
• 3:53
  ever was.
• 3:55
  And we did a a follow-up survey. Okay.
• 3:57
  We've been doing all these things. We've been
• 3:58
  working with y'all as a team.
• 4:00
  How are we doing? Like, what's the culture?
• 4:02
  How are people feeling? And the the I
• 4:05
  was so pleased. And it was it was
• 4:06
  like a it was like a end of
• 4:07
  year gift for,
• 4:09
  for me and and really for the team
• 4:10
  that worked so hard on this is that,
• 4:12
  you know, really the our our heart center
• 4:14
  team members,
• 4:15
  overwhelmingly
• 4:17
  provided positive feedback,
• 4:19
  and everybody really felt like we were going
• 4:20
  back in the right direction. So I know
• 4:22
  it's kind of a specific thing, but it
• 4:23
  was really important. The heart center is is
• 4:25
  a obviously,
• 4:26
  one of the most critical service lines.
• 4:28
  Again, being the only comprehensive children's hospital in
• 4:30
  the state of Louisiana,
• 4:32
  our children here need this, and we needed
• 4:33
  this program to be strong. And so we
• 4:35
  focused on it. You know, really executed on
• 4:37
  an action plan, focused on culture, and,
• 4:40
  I'm really proud of what our team has
• 4:43
  been able to do,
• 4:44
  just in a matter of of the twelve
• 4:46
  months of 2025.
• 4:48
  Civics are great, Matt. Do not apologize or
• 4:51
  be wary about sharing those with us. We're
• 4:53
  so glad you did. And let us know
• 4:54
  about the test steps that you took to
• 4:56
  strengthen your heart program. That's fantastic.
• 4:59
  Alright. So let's turn around and look at
• 5:01
  2026. As you said, we're just about a
• 5:03
  month into the year, but still plenty to
• 5:05
  go. So when you look at 2026,
• 5:08
  what would you say are the big priorities
• 5:09
  and the headwinds that you're focused on for
• 5:11
  this year and any tailwinds if, there are
• 5:14
  any worth noting?
• 5:15
  Yeah. So I think priority wise, of course,
• 5:18
  we have a have a long list of
• 5:19
  priorities, but,
• 5:21
  one of the important ones, one of the
• 5:23
  bigger ones that we're looking at is,
• 5:25
  in my role in particular, is,
• 5:28
  doing a facility master plan. Okay. We have
• 5:31
  a beautiful
• 5:32
  hospital located,
• 5:33
  right in the heart of New Orleans, right
• 5:35
  on the Mississippi River at Uptown, gorgeous oak
• 5:37
  trees, this amazing campus.
• 5:39
  But as I know many other hospitals face
• 5:42
  regularly, we've outgrown the space that we have.
• 5:44
  We have, you know, the need is more
• 5:46
  than the space than what we can accommodate.
• 5:47
  So,
• 5:48
  we're gonna spend some dedicated time,
• 5:52
  with some experts to help us understand what
• 5:54
  do we need to be planning for for
• 5:56
  the next ten years, what does our growth
• 5:57
  look like,
• 5:58
  and then, you know, brick and mortar, structure
• 6:01
  wise, what does that mean for us and
• 6:02
  where do we need to be, investing capital
• 6:04
  dollars to grow,
• 6:06
  to ensure we can continue to to care
• 6:08
  for all the kids in the, state of
• 6:10
  Louisiana and Mississippi who need us.
• 6:12
  So that's one big one. I will also
• 6:14
  say there's some service line specific
• 6:16
  priorities that are big for us.
• 6:18
  Of course, we're not done with heart, so
• 6:19
  I would say that's still on the on
• 6:21
  the priority list. But we have a lot
• 6:23
  of,
• 6:24
  growth and,
• 6:25
  kind of specific initiatives,
• 6:27
  research wise,
• 6:29
  related to our center for cancer and blood
• 6:31
  disorders.
• 6:32
  It's a growing area for us. And so,
• 6:35
  specifically, we talk about our, sickle cell population,
• 6:39
  and so we have a lot of priorities
• 6:41
  kind of tied to that.
• 6:42
  And then, you know, last but certainly not
• 6:44
  least, we are we have a sort of,
• 6:47
  finished the design process, but we're going to
• 6:49
  be
• 6:50
  building a brand new NICU.
• 6:52
  We've been over capacity for almost two years,
• 6:55
  and so we know that that's the first
• 6:56
  priority when we talk about our campus expansion.
• 6:59
  So we're we're, embarking. If I construct you,
• 7:01
  we'll start next month,
• 7:03
  on a brand new 60 bed NICU, to
• 7:06
  accommodate,
• 7:08
  our growth there. And then outside a priority
• 7:11
  outside the four walls of the hospital, if
• 7:12
  you will, which, you know, it's something that
• 7:15
  for Manning Family Children's is really a part
• 7:17
  of our DNA is our our kind of
• 7:19
  hand in hand involvement with,
• 7:21
  with our community and some of the different
• 7:22
  community programs that we partner with. We have
• 7:25
  a school based health program called Thrive Kids,
• 7:28
  and it's, you know, really kind of the
• 7:30
  in school,
• 7:31
  behavioral and overall health program.
• 7:35
  And we need to scale that up. And
• 7:37
  so one of our priorities
• 7:39
  is, you know, working through a plan to
• 7:41
  scale that up to reach even more children
• 7:43
  across the New Orleans re Greater New Orleans
• 7:46
  area and and even really all across,
• 7:48
  the state of Louisiana. And that's complicated because
• 7:50
  it involves,
• 7:52
  public and, public funding sources and multiple players.
• 7:56
  You know? So it's a kind of a
• 7:57
  a challenging priority.
• 7:59
  And so I don't I wouldn't call that
• 8:00
  a headwind, but that's certainly one of the,
• 8:03
  challenges with that with that being one of
• 8:05
  our priorities.
• 8:06
  In terms of headwinds,
• 8:09
  I think, you know, and a you probably
• 8:11
  this is you're probably hearing this from everybody
• 8:13
  you talk to, but balancing
• 8:15
  our priorities and our growth and our, focus
• 8:18
  on providing care to kids with all that
• 8:21
  just continued uncertainties around,
• 8:24
  funding sources. We're in an interesting community here.
• 8:27
  70% of our patient population
• 8:29
  that we serve,
• 8:31
  depends on Medicaid.
• 8:32
  And so
• 8:33
  Medicaid, you know, the federal and state decisions
• 8:36
  that around Medicaid funding have a profound impact
• 8:39
  on us. And so it's sort of always
• 8:41
  a headwind,
• 8:43
  but seems to be a bit stronger of
• 8:44
  a headwind,
• 8:45
  you know, currently,
• 8:47
  with some unknowns. And so as we plan
• 8:50
  our growth, we plan our investments, our capital
• 8:53
  investments, we plan,
• 8:55
  our, you know, again, growing our our school
• 8:57
  programs.
• 8:58
  We have to balance that out with trying
• 9:01
  to to navigate those uncertainties around funding.
• 9:05
  And I would say so that's kind of
• 9:06
  the that's kind of the headwind with every
• 9:07
  single initiative that we have is to make
• 9:08
  sure that you're,
• 9:10
  delicate and doing that delicate dance, as much
• 9:13
  as we can.
• 9:15
  Yeah. Delicate dance is a great way to
• 9:16
  put it, Matt. And and as you said,
• 9:18
  I think a lot of
• 9:20
  leaders in your position can relate to that,
• 9:24
  task ahead of you. But it's something I
• 9:26
  I know that you all take on, with
• 9:27
  a great deal of pride and,
• 9:29
  initiative and, you know,
• 9:31
  you you you know that you're gonna get
• 9:33
  a job done one way or the other.
• 9:34
  Right? So with that in mind,
• 9:37
  you you've listed off our audience a great
• 9:39
  many things that you have coming ahead, and
• 9:40
  they all sound terrific. I think they're gonna
• 9:42
  benefit,
• 9:43
  not only your organization, but your your population
• 9:45
  of patients,
• 9:46
  tremendously.
• 9:47
  So when you look at
• 9:49
  maybe one or two of those initiatives that
• 9:51
  you have coming,
• 9:52
  what would you say is the hardest thing
• 9:54
  you have
• 9:56
  going on you have to do in the
• 9:57
  coming year? And it doesn't mean you're not
• 9:59
  looking forward to it, but it's just something
• 10:01
  you know that you really gotta, you know,
• 10:03
  have a high degree of focus to accomplish.
• 10:05
  Yeah.
• 10:07
  I would kinda go back to our school
• 10:08
  based program. We started this program in 2020.
• 10:11
  It started with, you know, one FTE and
• 10:14
  kind of a dream.
• 10:15
  Our CEO had it was his you know,
• 10:17
  kind of his brainchild.
• 10:18
  And it's grown rapidly. A 100 FTEs were
• 10:21
  serving reaching a 100,000 kids. And, again, it's
• 10:24
  kinda wrap around services ensuring
• 10:27
  taking, you
• 10:29
  know, getting kids reaching kids in the schools
• 10:32
  where they're at and ensuring they have access
• 10:34
  to the specialists or the providers that they
• 10:35
  need, whether it's, again, behavioral health or any,
• 10:38
  really, any other health problem.
• 10:40
  It's been so critical to the city of
• 10:42
  New Orleans and the school districts that we're
• 10:44
  working with,
• 10:45
  and has been such an important part of
• 10:47
  the community in, you know, just in the
• 10:49
  short five years that it's been around.
• 10:51
  But it is at
• 10:52
  major risk of loss of funding. The funding
• 10:55
  sources are,
• 10:56
  many,
• 10:57
  but they're all sort of up in the
• 10:59
  air. And so we see that as probably
• 11:01
  the most
• 11:02
  challenging
• 11:03
  thing we have is
• 11:05
  figure out how we make sure we sustain
• 11:08
  what we have today in terms of the
• 11:10
  schools that we're in and the team that
• 11:11
  we have,
• 11:12
  providing this care to those kids in school.
• 11:15
  But then also, as I mentioned, we wanna
• 11:17
  scale that up. This is a program that
• 11:18
  needs to be everywhere across the state of
• 11:20
  Louisiana and every school across the Greater New
• 11:22
  Orleans area. And so,
• 11:24
  that we see is probably the hardest thing
• 11:26
  to do is figure out how we scale
• 11:28
  up, how we access provide access to more
• 11:31
  kids while also having all those difficult conversations
• 11:34
  with,
• 11:35
  city and state legislators and even up to
• 11:38
  the federal level and really advocating for the
• 11:40
  children of the state of Louisiana.
• 11:43
  You're gonna spend a lot of time on
• 11:44
  the phone if you're not already. Not take
• 11:46
  I take that back, man. I know you're
• 11:47
  already spending a lot of time on the
• 11:49
  phone for all those important reasons that you
• 11:51
  mentioned. But, yeah, thanks for as always, you're
• 11:53
  laying the that out for audience
• 11:55
  and just just how you're gonna get there
• 11:57
  because I know it's not easy, but I
• 11:59
  know, like I said, you're looking forward to
• 12:00
  it as well.
• 12:02
  I I am curious, though. So
• 12:04
  when you're in the middle of a project
• 12:06
  like the Thrive Kids
• 12:08
  and given how important it is to New
• 12:11
  Orleans community, so
• 12:13
  when you're out there
• 12:15
  selling is maybe not the right word. Just
• 12:17
  but trying to convince
• 12:18
  others how important this is.
• 12:20
  Where where does your mind go to
• 12:23
  when when asked that question?
• 12:25
  You know, we're we we have so many
• 12:28
  individual
• 12:30
  student slash patient stories that make it an
• 12:32
  easy it's an easy story to tell. Like,
• 12:34
  there's
• 12:34
  no anyone with a heart will tell you,
• 12:36
  like, gosh. This is important, and we have
• 12:37
  to figure out how to fund it. So
• 12:39
  that's that's the easy part. Right? Is Sure.
• 12:41
  I can tell there's this, you know, there's
• 12:42
  a young girl.
• 12:44
  Her name is Stefania. And
• 12:46
  because of our program, she was really having
• 12:48
  trouble in school in terms of her behavior,
• 12:51
  in terms of her attendance.
• 12:53
  And through this program and the experts that
• 12:56
  are part of this program working with these
• 12:58
  kids,
• 12:59
  we discovered not only did she have some
• 13:01
  sort of mental behavioral health challenges, she also
• 13:03
  had poor eyesight and poor
• 13:06
  hearing. So we worked with her to get
• 13:07
  her, you know, glasses and get her,
• 13:10
  hearing aid,
• 13:12
  and then focus on some of the behavioral
• 13:14
  mental components.
• 13:17
  This was a couple years ago, she's thriving.
• 13:19
  She, you know, she otherwise is probably a
• 13:21
  child who, you know, we was on a
• 13:23
  trajectory to drop out of school and not,
• 13:25
  you know, not complete her education. So there's
• 13:27
  about a 100,000,000
• 13:28
  stories now. That's probably a bit of an
• 13:30
  exaggeration. But we have so many stories like
• 13:32
  that where,
• 13:33
  it's the it's going into the schools, getting
• 13:35
  kids where they're at, meeting kids where they're
• 13:37
  at, and getting them the services and health
• 13:39
  care that they need,
• 13:41
  and keeping them in school, helping them stay
• 13:43
  educated, keeping them healthy, preventing them from coming
• 13:45
  to the hospital.
• 13:46
  Yeah. And so,
• 13:48
  so that story is pretty
• 13:51
  fun to tell and easy for people to
• 13:53
  understand. And so I'm confident that we're gonna
• 13:55
  find ways to fund this program and which
• 13:57
  is gonna grow the way we want it
• 13:58
  to because it is such an easy story
• 14:00
  to tell, but it is,
• 14:02
  as you say, we are on the phone
• 14:04
  and in, face to face discussions with,
• 14:07
  all of our,
• 14:08
  advocacy
• 14:09
  experts and legislators,
• 14:10
  trying to make sure that every kid has
• 14:12
  the access to so they can be another
• 14:15
  story like the one I just shared.
• 14:17
  Gotcha. No. Thank you so much for sharing
• 14:18
  that, Matt. And it I think it really
• 14:20
  shines a light on
• 14:21
  the interconnectivity
• 14:23
  between
• 14:24
  education and health care, which I think is
• 14:26
  becoming much more of,
• 14:28
  an initiative that
• 14:30
  health systems like yourself want to take on
• 14:32
  and rightfully so because I think it's
• 14:35
  as you know, it's beneficial to to patients
• 14:37
  in so many ways.
• 14:39
  Lastly, Matt, you mentioned
• 14:41
  so many opportunities that
• 14:44
  many children many family children
• 14:46
  has
• 14:48
  for growth. Are there any that you wanna
• 14:50
  spotlight now in addition to the Thrive Kids
• 14:53
  program? I absolutely. So,
• 14:56
  one and I think I briefly mentioned this,
• 14:58
  but I would I wanna highlight the work
• 15:00
  that the team is doing because I think
• 15:01
  it's I think it's probably one of our,
• 15:03
  biggest opportunities for growth, and that's in our
• 15:06
  center for cancer and blood disorders,
• 15:08
  and specifically sickle cell patients. So we have
• 15:11
  a high number of sickle cell patients in
• 15:13
  this region,
• 15:15
  high population. And
• 15:17
  we are the only accredited program in Louisiana
• 15:19
  for pediatric stem cell transplant.
• 15:21
  Also, the only program in Louisiana and really
• 15:23
  the Gulf South approved for gene therapy treatment,
• 15:26
  which is life changing, life saving, both of
• 15:28
  those are.
• 15:29
  And so,
• 15:31
  we are we've seen tremendous growth,
• 15:34
  as we've grown the you know, grown that
• 15:35
  program,
• 15:37
  and I just I it's it's I mean,
• 15:38
  I it feels, you know, it's such so
• 15:40
  cool to be a part of this. We're,
• 15:41
  like, medical, you know, history.
• 15:44
  We're we're we're on the early, you know,
• 15:46
  we're in the early phase of that. It's
• 15:47
  really fun to watch and,
• 15:50
  you know, nice to see that the again,
• 15:51
  that Gulf South from Louisiana,
• 15:53
  Mississippi, even in the parts of Alabama and
• 15:55
  the Florida Panhandle,
• 15:57
  geographically closer to New Orleans than many of
• 16:00
  the other major metropolitan areas and being able
• 16:03
  to,
• 16:04
  provide these life changing, life altering, truly life
• 16:08
  saving services,
• 16:09
  for
• 16:10
  our, cancer patients, but specifically our sickle cell
• 16:13
  patient population
• 16:15
  is amazing. Our team is fantastic, and I
• 16:18
  believe that that's where, you know, maybe the
• 16:20
  next time we talk, I'll be I'll be
• 16:21
  bragging about some major growth,
• 16:24
  that we're seeing there because it's it's a
• 16:26
  fantastic program and something so much needed especially
• 16:28
  for kids in this particular region of the
• 16:30
  country.
• 16:31
  I certainly hope so, Matt. That's the greatest
• 16:33
  reason as any to be proud of. Right?
• 16:37
  So,
• 16:38
  yeah, Matt, thank you so much for being
• 16:39
  on the podcast today and sharing everything going
• 16:41
  on. Well, a lot of things. Maybe not
• 16:43
  everything, but so many of the great things
• 16:45
  going on down at Manning Family Children's. Yeah.
• 16:47
  We can't wait to see you when you're
• 16:49
  here in April for our conference and any
• 16:51
  other time from here after that.
• 16:53
  Thank you, Chris. I appreciate the invite to
• 16:54
  to share a little bit more about what's
• 16:56
  going on here, and I look forward to
• 16:57
  seeing you in April.