Two of Chicago’s leading academic health systems have joined forces to offer more comprehensive pediatric medical services under one umbrella.
Lurie Children’s Hospital and Rush University System for Health announced an affiliation agreement Friday to share facilities, physicians, treatment and research. The goal is to stop competing and start collaborating, improving access to better, and potentially more affordable, pediatric care.
“However they enter the system, that gives us the opportunity to make sure we find the right place with the right person at the right time for the care that they need,” said Tom Shanley, president and CEO of Lurie Children’s.
The partnership, operating under the banner “Lurie Children’s & Rush Advancing Children’s Health,” takes effect on Feb. 1 and will be jointly managed by the two hospitals. It will link Rush University Medical Center’s pediatric services — both inpatient and outpatient — to Lurie Children’s Hospital.
Both teaching hospitals will retain their academic affiliations. Lurie Children’s Hospital is the pediatric training facility for Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, while Rush University System has its own academic component, Rush University, which includes a medical school, nursing college and other health care education.
While health system mergers are growing more common, the affiliation of two separate academic hospitals is unusual.
Ranga Krishnan, CEO of the Rush University System, sought out the clinical affiliation with Lurie Children’s beginning in November 2019, looking to provide improved access to pediatric care across Chicago. Rush, which is located in the Illinois Medical District on Chicago’s Near West Side, also has several satellite locations in the city and suburbs.
Lurie Children’s Hospital is located in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood.
Sharing resources will allow both health systems to provide greater access to pediatric specialists, where demand may outstrip the supply of caregivers, he said.
“We’re actually going to try credentialing people to be able to work in both places,” Krishnan said. “The focus is always going to be what’s going to be best for the patient.”
Krishnan said pediatric care hospitals across the country generally lose money, but financial considerations were not the driving force behind the partnership.
