Bringing Advanced Care for Kids Close to Home
ThedaCare is partnering with Bellin Health and Children’s Wisconsin on a pediatric joint venture, Connected for Kids. It’s aimed at improving the health and well-being of children and adolescents in northeast and central Wisconsin, as well as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Through focused coordination, closer alignment, and resource investments, the partnership will make a meaningful impact on the lives of youth, their families, and the region’s communities.
The organizations will remain independent entities and maintain responsibility for the day-to-day operations of pediatric services at their clinics and facilities. At the same time, the three entities will work closely together to enhance pediatric primary and specialty care to benefit children and adolescents in this growing region.
Each partner organization will play an essential role, with direct benefits to patients that include:
Bringing additional pediatric services and specialists to the region to expand access to local, close-to-home care.
Reducing the need for children and their families to travel outside the region when they need a higher level of care.
Consistent, best-practice standards of care across each organization’s clinical settings in the region.
Tailored child and adolescent services that meet community-specific needs with the right resources, expertise, skilled providers and clinical staff, and technology.
Better and more efficient care through seamless coordination and tighter alignment across the three systems.
Why these Partners?
ThedaCare and Bellin have robust primary care networks that together provide more than 180,000 pediatric care visits with nearly 430 providers across approximately 70 locations throughout the region.
Children’s Wisconsin has operated a pediatric hospital, including a neonatal intensive care unit and pediatric unit, at ThedaCare Regional Medical Center-Neenah since 2001. It also offers dozens of pediatric specialties, including more than 20 in Northeast Wisconsin, and is one of the top-ranked pediatric health systems in the country. In addition, Children’s has opened a new outpatient clinic in Appleton, representing a significant investment in the region.
Pediatricians and family medicine providers remain the vital home base for children and adolescents. Thus, the joint venture will align with each partner’s existing primary and pediatric specialty care expertise. The partnership builds on the existing long-term relationships between ThedaCare and Children’s Wisconsin as well as between ThedaCare and Bellin Health.
What are the Goals?
ThedaCare and its partners recognize the important of having access to high-quality care closer to home. Many patients and their families must travel outside the region to receive higher-level specialized care, which costs both time and money. Through this strategic partnership, we will bring additional pediatric services and specialists to the region to expand access to local, close-to-home care and consistent, best-practice standards of care across each organization’s clinical settings.
What’s Staying the Same?
Much work lies ahead as this vision comes to fruition. Both during the transition and after, children and their families will continue to see the same physicians and providers they know and trust.
Family medicine providers and pediatricians are the vital home base for the children and adolescents we serve. This partnership will continue to support those relationships while adding collaboration among the partner organizations and more access to specialty care services over time.
