Children’s, UNMC strengthen partnership

UNMC Chancellor Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D. (left), and Rodrigo López, interim president and CEO, Children's Hospital & Medical Center

Children’s Hospital & Medical Center and UNMC today announced the signing of a new master affiliation agreement to further strengthen their longstanding partnership and enhance pediatric care, education and research in the state of Nebraska and beyond.

The master affiliation agreement creates a path forward to broaden and enhance collaborations between Children’s and various UNMC entities. It serves as an “umbrella” over Children’s current institutional affiliation agreement with the UNMC College of Medicine; it also is intended to provide a framework under which new individual affiliation agreements between other UNMC academic units and Children’s will be developed in the future.

“When independent, freestanding children’s hospitals like ours and academic medical centers like UNMC team up, it makes pediatric care stronger and it makes communities stronger,” said Rodrigo López, Children’s interim president & CEO. “We are pleased to broaden and build upon this tremendous partnership because we know it will make life better for children.”

“We are pleased to expand the UNMC agreement with Children’s Hospital & Medical Center,” said Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., chancellor for UNMC and the University of Nebraska at Omaha. “For more than a decade, the UNMC/Children’s partnership has flourished. The new agreement is a win-win for both institutions, but more than that, it’s a win-win for children and families in the region.

“It will pay dividends by improving patient care, while providing more research and educational opportunities for our faculty and students. It will truly put our pediatric care on par with the best programs in the country. We are very grateful to the Children’s leadership and look forward to continued collaboration in the future.”

UNMC and Children’s have historically — and successfully — worked together for decades in a variety of arrangements to support the delivery of pediatric care, to educate future pediatric caregivers and to perform pediatric clinical and academic research. This affiliation helps ensure that children and families in Nebraska and throughout the region have access to the safest, highest-quality pediatric specialty and subspecialty care, medical education and research.

“This agreement is about coming together for children — our children, grandchildren and generations to come,” López said.

About Children’s Hospital & Medical Center
Children’s Hospital & Medical Center is the only full-service, pediatric health care center in Nebraska, providing expertise in more than 50 pediatric specialty services to children across a five-state region and beyond. Children’s is home to Nebraska’s only Level IV regional Newborn Intensive Care Unit and the state’s only Level II Pediatric Trauma Center. A regional heart center, it also offers expertise in pediatric heart transplantation. Children’s is recognized as a 2019-20 Best Children’s Hospital by U.S. News & World Report in five pediatric specialties: Cardiology and Heart Surgery, Pulmonology, Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, Orthopedics and Diabetes & Endocrine Disorders. Visit us online at ChildrensOmaha.org.

We are Nebraska Medicine and UNMC. Our mission is to lead the world in transforming lives to create a healthy future for all individuals and communities through premier educational programs, innovative research and extraordinary patient care.