Take the Lead: Your donations can help children’s hospitals expand access to high-quality care

Take the Lead is a blog series from Teri Nestel, president and CEO of Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. In this leadership-focused series, Teri will share her insights and leadership lessons alike.

Throughout its 40-year history, Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals has been committed to making sure every child receives the best care available so that they can flourish and reach their full potential.

Even when high-quality care is available, many families struggle to access it for their children, due to financial, distance, transportation or language barriers, prohibitive work schedules or limited access to technology.

Member hospitals of Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals are cornerstones in reducing these barriers to high-quality health care for children.

Of the 170 children’s hospitals across the U.S. and Canada in our network:

• 99% offer telehealth services
• 98% offer language interpretation and translation services
• 98% have community-based clinics that bring services closer-to-home for families
• 75% offer school-based health care programs
• 67% hold community health and wellness fairs
• 64% have patient navigators to help families with appointment scheduling and other logistics
• 51% provide transportation services or assistance

And because our funding model is unrestricted, when someone donates to Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, those dollars stay within the community where they were raised and are used by their local member children’s hospital to meet the greatest needs of local kids.

I am constantly amazed by the innovation and creativity of our member hospitals for developing programs to expand accessibility and remove barriers to care for children in their communities.

Here are just a few examples:

• Levine Children’s Hospital conducts comprehensive virtual medical exams at more than 85 schools through the Atrium Health Levine Children’s School-Based Virtual Care program.
• Salinas Valley Children’s Hospital offers a Mobile Health Unit that visits schools in predominantly rural, low-income communities, and a Miracle Mobile service that transports kids with life-threatening illnesses to and from medical appointments.
• Dayton Children’s Hospital offers pop-up COVID vaccination clinics, school-based care programs, and a pediatric-focused retail clinic called Kids Express, providing quick, convenient in-person or virtual care for kids 6 weeks to 18 years of age.
• Shannon Medical Center offers drive-through vaccine clinics, telemedicine programs, community clinics, transportation and outpatient prescription assistance, and more.

These types of services go above and beyond the core functions of a hospital, requiring substantial, additional resources and staffing. So, when you support Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, you’re enabling hospitals to reach out and care for kids across their communities in innovative ways. That’s changing kids’ health to change the future in action!