When Chanda Chacón was a young girl, she was in a serious car accident.
As a result of the accident, she embarked on what she calls a “bad experience in the health care arena,” a two-year health care journey to discover just how, and how badly, she had been injured.
As a result, “It’s a calling to me to ensure that we are providing excellence in the work we do,” she said.
That’s one reason the new president and CEO of Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, who stepped into the role last month, is excited about the affiliation between Children’s and the UNMC College of Medicine.
“I have worked in academic health care for my entire career,” said Chacón, who came to Omaha from Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock and who previously worked at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. “I have always had an academic partner.
“An academic affiliation is important, because I do believe that iron sharpens iron,” she said. “It’s important for us to stay on the cutting edge, because families deserve excellence. And we can’t just take one pathway to understand that.”
The affiliation with UNMC, Chacón said, opens wider and more varied pathways for innovation, for research, for training. “The academic affiliation gives us another facet to how we work and helps strengthen our ability to move the dial on child health.”
Part of what moves that dial, she said, is research. She pointed to a strong interconnectedness between research and clinical care that allows clinicians and researchers to provide innovations in clinical care.
“We get better answers when you have more voices at the table to see problems and challenges in different ways. Collaboration, being able to solve challenges and problems together with your partners, is the way health care works.”
She’d also like to see UNMC and Children’s expand their partnerships in the community, noting that non-medical partners do approximately 80% of health care work, the part that doesn’t happen in the walls of a hospital or clinic.
“These organizations are helping with poverty, food insecurity, financial literacy, education. What a great opportunity we have to show the community that we all know how to work together.”
Chacón said the first 100 days in her new role will be focused on listening. Although she extensively researched Children’s, UNMC and the health care landscape of the city of Omaha and the state of Nebraska before accepting the CEO position, she knows there’s more to learn, and she’s ready.
“I’m meeting with the people who work in the organization — service chiefs, physicians, leaders of departments at UNMC and different health care partners — really trying to understand the organization through everyone’s different vantage point, learning about our history, and understanding where our stakeholders, employees and team members see the future of Children’s.”
That future, she said, will continue to include a partnership with the UNMC College of Medicine — and, with the expansion of the affiliation agreement in 2019, other areas of UNMC as well.
“If I was a member of the community, I would want to see that alignment between our organizations,” she said. “It shows that we are willing to work together – and that our goals, at the end of the day, are the same.
“How do we get the best outcomes for children? What can we do together to get those outcomes?
“For me, the relationship we have is powerful in its ability to get that work done and to move the dial on child health. Because nobody can do that by themselves.”