29-04-2025
Heath care for mothers, kids expanding in South Sound with enhanced partnership
A local health care system and Seattle hospital have announced plans to bring their two entities closer together and reduce the need to drive to Seattle for South Sound families in need of care.
Tacoma-based Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and Seattle Children's on Tuesday announced a strategic affiliation 'to advance clinical excellence and expand pediatric and mother-baby care for patients in the Puget Sound region,' according to a joint news release.
The two have worked together for years in specialized neonatal care within VMFH Family Birth Centers, with neonatologists available on site and by phone 'so the most vulnerable newborns can receive advanced, expert care without leaving VMFH facilities,' it noted.
The joint news release offered an example of collaboration. At the St. Joseph Medical Center Level III neonatal intensive care unit, Seattle Children's pediatric cardiologists and its infection-prevention team already aare vailable to assess 'complex diseases for mother and baby.'
'The agreement, built on nearly 15 years of collaboration and a shared commitment to exceptional patient care, will strengthen access to expert physicians and care teams and ensure seamless coordination of care for young patients and their families by extending the current longstanding affiliation and expanding it to new areas,' it continued.
With this new strategic affiliation, VMFH and Seattle Children's 'will leverage resources and an expansive footprint across both organizations to serve more patients closer to home,' the release added.
VMFH, with 10 hospitals and hundreds of care sites in the state, is part of CommonSpirit, one of the nation's largest health systems. Seattle Children's serves as the pediatric and adolescent academic medical center for Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho, and includes its hospital, research institute and foundation.
Along with improving access to specialists, the move is set to expand perinatal, neonatal and related specialty services across VMFH Birth Centers in King, Pierce and Kitsap counties, according to the release.
An oversight committee, with representatives from both organizations, will guide the implementation of the strategic affiliation.
Tom Kruse is VMFH chief strategy officer and Mark Salierno is Seattle Children's chief strategy and business development officer. The two spoke to The News Tribune Tuesday about the enhanced affiliation.
Both emphasized how the move will bring more specialized services south of Seattle.
'Seattle Children's has the region's leading quality specialty program and platform, and VMFH has over 300 sites of care,' said Salierno. 'So our goal is to deploy specialists together in different geographies that allow us to keep moms and babies together and allow kids to stay in their local community wherever possible.'
'It really is going to bring new services to the community — much needed services,' said Kruse, acknowledging the move is going head to head with Tacoma-based MultiCare's Mary Bridge Children's Hospital to bring more competition to MultiCare's home turf.
Mary Bridge Children's is in the midst of construction of a new medical campus and hospital in Tacoma, which will bring a new inpatient hospital tower, ambulatory building with specialty clinics and urgent-care services. It is set to open early next year.
'Franciscan, years and years ago, decided not to create a duplicative service to Mary Bridge,' Kruse said. 'It's not that there's anything wrong with Mary Bridge. It's just not sufficient for what we find ourselves needing with the high acuity births that we deliver and unfortunately, the very sick kids that we see.'
To that end, Kruse said, it's 'likely' to see expansions at sites such as St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma and St. Michael Medical Center in Silverdale.
'There's very specific specialties that we're trying to deploy together on the pediatric side,' said Salierno. 'So, if there's a prenatal anomaly diagnosed at week 20, it would allow a fellowship trained specialist who's part of a top 10 US News-ranked hospital to come down or use telemedicine, like we're doing now, to meet with the obstetrician and help build a care plan within 24 to 48 hours of that prenatal diagnosis.
'And as Tom alluded to, we are exploring over the next several months, ways to expand at St. Joe's and St Michael's and other sites of care models such as that,' Salierno added.
Kim Deynaka is director of NICU and NICU operations at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma. In an interview Tuesday, she told The News Tribune that St. Joseph had benefited from years of working with Seattle Children's neonatal team.
'They're mission driven like us, and they're family centered and collaborative,' she said. 'We have an annual reunion that the families come back to see the doctors and the nurses that help care for their babies and help them graduate from the NICU, and it's grown so big that now we're over 300 invites per year.'
She offered another example of the benefit of virtual care collaboration.
'If a newborn baby has a rash that the pediatrician can't identify or understand, just getting that consultation virtually, and being able to see the baby and the family and talk to them and examine the baby with the local pediatric has been just amazing,' she said.
'In the past, without that virtual support, that baby would have either had to been transported to a higher level of care, or the families would have had to drive them to a specialty appointment and things like that. But now it can be done here at the hospital right in their own community.' she said.
'What really is impressive is that they come to us. We're not having to leave our communities and our families to go to them,' she added.
So, now would be the time for patients to add their two cents, Kruse noted.
'What we have to look at, is where our families are at, what do they need, and where do they need it, and then figure out where we can put that service that makes the most sense,' Kruse said.
'Our commitment to the long term to the South Sound, which Seattle Children's has made over the years, is now doubled down,' Salierno added. 'We're committed for the long term to reduce that drive time by using technology to do that, and to deploy brick and mortar capabilities to do that.'
Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and Seattle Children's are soliciting input from the South Sound on what services residents would like to see. Send comments via email to vmfh-sch@
