The parent companies of Rady Children's Hospital in San Diego and the Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) announced a proposed merger between their two pediatric healthcare systems that will allow the hospitals to collaborate on research and clinical care for children across Southern California.
The proposal for the merged entity to be known as Rady Children's Health will first need to adhere to a regulatory review, which is expected to be completed sometime in 2024, the newly formed group said in a news release Wednesday.
Some of their main priorities will be to accelerate research for new treatments and cures, retain and attract talent, and better train health care workers, according to the pediatric care group.
The two current CEOs, Kimberly Chavalas Cripe of CHOC and Rady Children’s Patricio A. Frias, M.D., will remain on as co-CEOs and each medical facility will have its own medical staff and boards.
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Thursday, Frias announced the merger, mentioning that he and Cripe had been discussing the opportunity for a year and a half. He highlighted goals that included more access points to care, better quality care, and making the hospital system a workforce destination. Also, he plans to focus on more areas like population health and mental health.
“Some specialties are hard to recruit for. So as you serve a broader patient base, it allows that opportunity to be able to recruit and retain some of the best and the brightest in some of those areas,” said Frias.
Frias also stressed the intended growth and continued collaboration with each hospital’s respective University of California partnerships.
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“This will provide more opportunities for clinical research, translational research and really finding the cures and treatments for kids in the next generation,” said Frias.
"CHOC and Rady Children’s have similar missions and visions and complementary cultures focused on innovation and a dynamic history of collaboration that has enhanced children’s health in our communities," CHOC Board of Directors Chair Doug McCombs said in a written statement.
Rady Children's Hospital is one of the largest pediatric hospitals on the west coast and serves patients in San Diego, southern Riverside and Imperial counties. It has the county's only dedicated pediatric trauma center. CHOC has two hospitals in the city of Orange and Mission Viejo and several other clinics serving children.
The new Rady Children's Health touted previous collaboration between hospitals have previously collaborated on pediatric care advancements like Project Baby Bear, a genome sequencing initiative to allow health care professionals to quickly diagnose infants with rare diseases, the group said.
Frias hopes the merger process will be complete by the summer of 2025.
