UCI, CHOC Leaders Pledge to Transform Healthcare for Orange County Children

UC Irvine and CHOC Children’s affirmed their affiliation Dec. 8 with a pledge to transform the way pediatric care is delivered to Orange County’s children and families.

The affiliation integrates healthcare services in unified state-of-the-art facilities designed, staffed and equipped specifically to meet the needs of pediatric patients. Though CHOC and UCI remain separate institutions and sites, this affiliation is the result of a years-long conversation between the two organizations about how to improve the region’s pediatric care.

“To make health care the best it can be, we need to think in new ways, be willing to adapt and commit ourselves to working together,” said UCI Chancellor Michael Drake, M.D. “Today we’re celebrating just such a partnership – an alliance – that will benefit the children and the families of Southern California. This is one of those remarkable moments when caring people see a need and then act on the opportunity to make life better.”

CHOC will provide inpatient and outpatient specialty care to patients. UCI will continue to provide pediatric emergency services, burn care, trauma services requiring immediate surgery, neonatal intensive care, newborn nursery care, and child and adolescent psychiatry.

Dr. David N. Bailey, UCI’s vice chancellor for health affairs, and CHOC Children’s president and CEO Kimberly Cripe thanked local and state leaders for their support and the University of California Regents, CHOC board of directors and CHOC’s physicians group for their approval.

The advanced choir from Hewes Middle School in Tustin serenaded the assembled doctors, staff and community leaders with “We Belong Together.” Choco Bear and UCI’s Peter the Anteater looked on as Bailey and Cripe signed the pledge to the community.

Bailey said the arrangement will benefit the university’s traditional teaching and clinical research missions by making CHOC’s greater variety of pediatric patients available to medical residents and clinical researchers.

CHOC has long had a vision of becoming a world-class children’s hospital along the ranks of those in Philadelphia and Boston, Cripe said. Until now, the difference is that each of those leading hospitals had an affiliation with a major medical school and the opportunities such an arrangement provides.

Integrating pediatric services will pay dividends in attracting world-class pediatricians and researchers, Cripe and Bailey said.

Thus far, CHOC and UCI have recruited Dr. Tony Khoury, a world-renowned pediatric urologist; Dr. Zeev Kain, an international expert in the clinical management of fear, anxiety and pain in children undergoing surgery; Dr. Neil Jones, an award-winning microsurgeon; and Dr. Anjan Batra, a widely published pediatric cardiologist and Orange County’s only pediatric electrophysiologist.

UCI’s research expertise already is tapping into CHOC’s large volume of patients in ways that ultimately will benefit pediatric care.

Dr. Kain recently published research about improving medical outcomes by preventing anxiety and pain among children prior to and following surgery. Drawing on CHOC’s large and diverse population of pediatric cancer patients makes it feasible for Kain to expand studies related to children’s experiences of medical procedures.

“We are taking what we know about kids undergoing surgery and translating it into better care for chronically sick kids,” said Kain, UCI’s anesthesiology & perioperative care chair and CHOC’s medical director of perioperative research.

CHOC and UCI’s pledge

Through our strategic affiliation, we pledge to advance pediatric medicine and enhance access to the best treatment for our community’s children.

We pledge to collaborate on recruiting to Orange County the best and brightest pediatric specialists in the world, while retaining the leading pediatric experts already on our staff.

We are committed to enhancing the educational experience of future pediatricians and the care of young patients by integrating our pediatric residency programs.

By aligning our research programs, we promise to offer our patients increased access to pediatric clinical trials and comprehensive treatment options – providing more hope to our community’s children and families.

On Dec. 8, 2008, we hereby pledge to honor our commitment to children and to work tirelessly in securing healthy futures for our community.

– John Murray, University Communications

Students from Hewes Middle School choir in Tustin helped celebrate the affiliation between UC Irvine and CHOC.

UCI Chancellor Michael Drake, M.D., endorses affiliation.

Dr. David Bailey, UCI’s vice chancellor of health affairs, and Kimberly Cripe, CHOC Children’s president and CEO, celebrate the affiliation between UCI and CHOC.

Photos courtesy of Children’s Hospital of Orange County
UC Irvine Healthcare
CHOC Children’s
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