Community Health & Wellness

St. Anthony owner expands partnership with Seattle Children’s Hospital

Virginia Mason Franciscan Health recently announced a “strategic affiliation” with Seattle Children’s Hospital. The partnership will bring more services directly to patients on the Kitsap Peninsula at St. Anthony Hospital and St. Michael Medical Center in Silverdale.

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Seattle Children’s, a  renowned pediatric hospital, has provided care for newborns at VMFH Birthing Centers for the past 15 years, with neonatologists available onsite and on-call. This new agreement will expand those services and employ Seattle Children’s physicians across other areas of the hospital, including in primary and urgent care clinics. 

Patients will be able to access expert physicians and care teams from Seattle Children’s that had not previously been available at local hospitals, VMFH said. This will reduce the amount of travel and barriers to quality care, the company said. 

The Seattle Children’s Hospital campus.

Existing collaboration

Virginia Mason Franciscan, owner of 10 Puget Sound hospitals including two on the Kitsap Peninsula, says the agreement will expand a longstanding collaboration and marks a significant step to improving care for mothers and their children.

The agreement will leverage the resources of both agencies to expand access to “expert” physicians and care teams for VMFH patients, the company said.

Through the affiliation, access to perinatal, neonatal  care for newborns and related specialty services will expand across VMFH Birth Centers, the company says, supporting  thousands of families. Access to pediatric speciality care throughout VMFHs care site will also improve, creating what the health organization is calling a “comprehensive system” of pediatric and “mother-baby care” across its primary, specialty, ambulatory and urgent care departments.

Right now,  Virginia Mason Franciscan owned hospitals – which deliver 10% of Washington’s births – send on average 25 vulnerable newborns per day to Seattle Children’s Hospital. Many families travel to their North Seattle campus or to a clinic in Federal Way. Embedding Seattle Children’s physicians across the Virginia Mason Network is expected to reduce those barriers. 

“Our goal is to keep every mother and baby together in their home community whenever possible, and any kid with a specialty need that otherwise would have to drive up to Seattle home, by bringing Seattle Children’s doctors down physically or using technology into VMFH  sites of care,” said Mark Salierno, children’s senior vice president and chief strategy and business development officer.

Specifics TBA

The specifics of how physicians will be deployed at VMFH sites and how many staff could be hired is still being worked out, Salierno said. A strategic oversight committee, with representatives from both organizations, will guide the affiliation.  

Tom Kruse, chief strategy officer for Virginia Mason Franciscan, called it a “pretty exciting day for the Peninsula.” Kruse, who served as chief strategy officer for old Harrison Hospital in Bremerton from 2007 to 2011, said the peninsula has been dealing with limited medical care for a long time and the partnership will bring needed services to the community.

“All of this is to help improve the overall health of the community by intervening sooner and bringing a truly world class children’s hospital to all the members of the peninsula who’ve never had that caliber before,” he said. “It should be a game changer.”