MMI, Children’s Hospital enter affiliation agreement

Children’s Hospital & Medical Center and the UNMC Munroe-Meyer Institute (MMI) have announced the signing of a new institutional affiliation agreement (IAA) to further strengthen their longstanding collaboration and improve care, education and research for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the state of Nebraska and beyond.

This new agreement specific to MMI and Children’s aims to enhance and expand genetics, developmental/behavioral pediatrics, behavioral health and primary care medical home services provided in Nebraska and across the region. This IAA lives under the larger “umbrella” of a master affiliation agreement between Children’s and UNMC, established in late 2019 to broaden and enhance partnership between Children’s and various UNMC entities.

“Through this collaboration, we’re teaming up in a very intentional way to improve the lives of countless children and families in the years to come,” said Rodrigo López, interim President & CEO, Children’s Hospital & Medical Center.

“As MMI prepares to enter its new, state-of-the-art facility, new opportunities are opening up, and this agreement with Children’s Hospital & Medical Center will enable us to develop important academic, research and clinical initiatives that will impact not only the children that we both serve, but children throughout the entire region, nation and world,” said Jeffrey P. Gold, M.D., chancellor of UNMC and the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

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 partnership 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 is an important step for our organizations, families we serve, and the community,” said Karoly Mirnics, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Munroe-Meyer Institute. “We have been historic partners — we share many parts of our respective missions, we have a shared vision for the future. Now that we formalized our relationship, we will be able to seamlessly share information and plan together to continuously improve and integrate our services.”