Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I'm Chris
Sosa, your host, and I'm thrilled to be
joined today by Matt Timmons. He's senior vice
president and chief operating officer of Manning Family
Children's in New Orleans.
Matt, thank you for joining us today.
Chris, good to see you again. Thanks for
having me. Yeah. You're a long time guest
of the Becker's Healthcare podcast, and we're always
happy to have,
repeat guests such as yourself. But just for
those
members of our listening audience who might not
be familiar with you or Manny Family Children's,
can you take a little time and let
us know a little bit about yourself and
the organization?
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So, so as you mentioned,
I'm the the chief operating officer here at
Manning Family Children's. Manning Family Children's is a
263
bed, freestanding,
comprehensive children's hospital located right here in beautiful
New Orleans, Louisiana.
We're part of an eight hospital system known
as LCMC Health. We are the only children's
hospital in our system.
We are the only comprehensive children's hospital in
the entire state of Louisiana. We provide care
to all children regardless of their, family's ability
to pay.
Some other interesting notes about Manning Family Children's.
We have a 51 bed behavioral hospital,
and that also comes with a kind of
a complete wrap around
set of mental and behavioral health programs and
services to support this, you know, this need
for these patients.
And outside of our main campus, we have
30 locations sprinkled really across the state of
Louisiana, some into Mississippi, Western Mississippi,
really trying to make sure we're bringing access
to pediatric specialists closer to to where our
patients live.
Gotcha. Thanks for laying that out for us,
Matt.
So
off the top here, let's look a little
bit back at 2025.
I know you guys had you got a
new name, so you're working on brand application
and things like that.
But let us know. So what would you
say is the most important initiative that you
led last year? And let us know about
the results.
Yeah.
Great question. Yeah. 2025
was a big year for us. You mentioned,
and I know we talked about it last
time,
we changed our brand, changed our name, and
so spent a lot of time on that.
And that was a huge part of 2025
and something that, you know, was a great
experience for me. It's the first time I'd
ever been through it, in my career, and
so that was fun to learn. But
when I think about, you know,
and all that was very important. So I
don't want to to take away from the
importance. When I think about things that I
specifically was really focused on in my role,
one of the areas that I have responsibility
for here is our heart center.
And in late twenty twenty four, our heart
center suffered some really,
just kinda faced some adversity. We had some
physician and surgeon turnover,
really some kind of unfortunate, really strange,
situations that really impacted key areas within the
heart center and led to, and and and
some market headwinds,
that just it it impacted that service line,
the volumes, and the culture.
And so we really saw, like, you know,
2025
needed to be the year of the heart
center so we could, get it back up
to the, you know, to the prominent heart
center that that it it had been before.
So I spent a lot of time and
I,
you know, like, really the first part of
2025,
I spent several months and I kinda went
on a listening tour. I,
one on one discussions. I did lots of
rounding, focus group sessions with all the different
team members.
We even did an anonymous survey, really trying
to understand what's going on, where are the
challenges,
why you know,
asking asking our experts in the heart center
why. Why are our volumes decreasing? What are
things we need to be doing? Where are
the, you know, where are the blind spots?
Got great feedback.
And so then we just use a really
kind of pragmatic approach, take the feedback,
worked with a task force, and we developed
a very large, very complex action plan, and
we spent 2025 executing that action plan.
And, you know, I can look back now,
now that we're, you know, just starting 2026.
We've had great physician recruitment. We've seen growth
in our volumes in those key areas.
The program is is as strong as it
ever was.
And we did a a follow-up survey. Okay.
We've been doing all these things. We've been
working with y'all as a team.
How are we doing? Like, what's the culture?
How are people feeling? And the the I
was so pleased. And it was it was
like a it was like a end of
year gift for,
for me and and really for the team
that worked so hard on this is that,
you know, really the our our heart center
team members,
overwhelmingly
provided positive feedback,
and everybody really felt like we were going
back in the right direction. So I know
it's kind of a specific thing, but it
was really important. The heart center is is
a obviously,
one of the most critical service lines.
Again, being the only comprehensive children's hospital in
the state of Louisiana,
our children here need this, and we needed
this program to be strong. And so we
focused on it. You know, really executed on
an action plan, focused on culture, and,
I'm really proud of what our team has
been able to do,
just in a matter of of the twelve
months of 2025.
Civics are great, Matt. Do not apologize or
be wary about sharing those with us. We're
so glad you did. And let us know
about the test steps that you took to
strengthen your heart program. That's fantastic.
Alright. So let's turn around and look at
2026. As you said, we're just about a
month into the year, but still plenty to
go. So when you look at 2026,
what would you say are the big priorities
and the headwinds that you're focused on for
this year and any tailwinds if, there are
any worth noting?
Yeah. So I think priority wise, of course,
we have a have a long list of
priorities, but,
one of the important ones, one of the
bigger ones that we're looking at is,
in my role in particular, is,
doing a facility master plan. Okay. We have
a beautiful
hospital located,
right in the heart of New Orleans, right
on the Mississippi River at Uptown, gorgeous oak
trees, this amazing campus.
But as I know many other hospitals face
regularly, we've outgrown the space that we have.
We have, you know, the need is more
than the space than what we can accommodate.
So,
we're gonna spend some dedicated time,
with some experts to help us understand what
do we need to be planning for for
the next ten years, what does our growth
look like,
and then, you know, brick and mortar, structure
wise, what does that mean for us and
where do we need to be, investing capital
dollars to grow,
to ensure we can continue to to care
for all the kids in the, state of
Louisiana and Mississippi who need us.
So that's one big one. I will also
say there's some service line specific
priorities that are big for us.
Of course, we're not done with heart, so
I would say that's still on the on
the priority list. But we have a lot
of,
growth and,
kind of specific initiatives,
research wise,
related to our center for cancer and blood
disorders.
It's a growing area for us. And so,
specifically, we talk about our, sickle cell population,
and so we have a lot of priorities
kind of tied to that.
And then, you know, last but certainly not
least, we are we have a sort of,
finished the design process, but we're going to
be
building a brand new NICU.
We've been over capacity for almost two years,
and so we know that that's the first
priority when we talk about our campus expansion.
So we're we're, embarking. If I construct you,
we'll start next month,
on a brand new 60 bed NICU, to
accommodate,
our growth there. And then outside a priority
outside the four walls of the hospital, if
you will, which, you know, it's something that
for Manning Family Children's is really a part
of our DNA is our our kind of
hand in hand involvement with,
with our community and some of the different
community programs that we partner with. We have
a school based health program called Thrive Kids,
and it's, you know, really kind of the
in school,
behavioral and overall health program.
And we need to scale that up. And
so one of our priorities
is, you know, working through a plan to
scale that up to reach even more children
across the New Orleans re Greater New Orleans
area and and even really all across,
the state of Louisiana. And that's complicated because
it involves,
public and, public funding sources and multiple players.
You know? So it's a kind of a
a challenging priority.
And so I don't I wouldn't call that
a headwind, but that's certainly one of the,
challenges with that with that being one of
our priorities.
In terms of headwinds,
I think, you know, and a you probably
this is you're probably hearing this from everybody
you talk to, but balancing
our priorities and our growth and our, focus
on providing care to kids with all that
just continued uncertainties around,
funding sources. We're in an interesting community here.
70% of our patient population
that we serve,
depends on Medicaid.
And so
Medicaid, you know, the federal and state decisions
that around Medicaid funding have a profound impact
on us. And so it's sort of always
a headwind,
but seems to be a bit stronger of
a headwind,
you know, currently,
with some unknowns. And so as we plan
our growth, we plan our investments, our capital
investments, we plan,
our, you know, again, growing our our school
programs.
We have to balance that out with trying
to to navigate those uncertainties around funding.
And I would say so that's kind of
the that's kind of the headwind with every
single initiative that we have is to make
sure that you're,
delicate and doing that delicate dance, as much
as we can.
Yeah. Delicate dance is a great way to
put it, Matt. And and as you said,
I think a lot of
leaders in your position can relate to that,
task ahead of you. But it's something I
I know that you all take on, with
a great deal of pride and,
initiative and, you know,
you you you know that you're gonna get
a job done one way or the other.
Right? So with that in mind,
you you've listed off our audience a great
many things that you have coming ahead, and
they all sound terrific. I think they're gonna
benefit,
not only your organization, but your your population
of patients,
tremendously.
So when you look at
maybe one or two of those initiatives that
you have coming,
what would you say is the hardest thing
you have
going on you have to do in the
coming year? And it doesn't mean you're not
looking forward to it, but it's just something
you know that you really gotta, you know,
have a high degree of focus to accomplish.
Yeah.
I would kinda go back to our school
based program. We started this program in 2020.
It started with, you know, one FTE and
kind of a dream.
Our CEO had it was his you know,
kind of his brainchild.
And it's grown rapidly. A 100 FTEs were
serving reaching a 100,000 kids. And, again, it's
kinda wrap around services ensuring
taking, you
know, getting kids reaching kids in the schools
where they're at and ensuring they have access
to the specialists or the providers that they
need, whether it's, again, behavioral health or any,
really, any other health problem.
It's been so critical to the city of
New Orleans and the school districts that we're
working with,
and has been such an important part of
the community in, you know, just in the
short five years that it's been around.
But it is at
major risk of loss of funding. The funding
sources are,
many,
but they're all sort of up in the
air. And so we see that as probably
the most
challenging
thing we have is
figure out how we make sure we sustain
what we have today in terms of the
schools that we're in and the team that
we have,
providing this care to those kids in school.
But then also, as I mentioned, we wanna
scale that up. This is a program that
needs to be everywhere across the state of
Louisiana and every school across the Greater New
Orleans area. And so,
that we see is probably the hardest thing
to do is figure out how we scale
up, how we access provide access to more
kids while also having all those difficult conversations
with,
city and state legislators and even up to
the federal level and really advocating for the
children of the state of Louisiana.
You're gonna spend a lot of time on
the phone if you're not already. Not take
I take that back, man. I know you're
already spending a lot of time on the
phone for all those important reasons that you
mentioned. But, yeah, thanks for as always, you're
laying the that out for audience
and just just how you're gonna get there
because I know it's not easy, but I
know, like I said, you're looking forward to
it as well.
I I am curious, though. So
when you're in the middle of a project
like the Thrive Kids
and given how important it is to New
Orleans community, so
when you're out there
selling is maybe not the right word. Just
but trying to convince
others how important this is.
Where where does your mind go to
when when asked that question?
You know, we're we we have so many
individual
student slash patient stories that make it an
easy it's an easy story to tell. Like,
there's
no anyone with a heart will tell you,
like, gosh. This is important, and we have
to figure out how to fund it. So
that's that's the easy part. Right? Is Sure.
I can tell there's this, you know, there's
a young girl.
Her name is Stefania. And
because of our program, she was really having
trouble in school in terms of her behavior,
in terms of her attendance.
And through this program and the experts that
are part of this program working with these
kids,
we discovered not only did she have some
sort of mental behavioral health challenges, she also
had poor eyesight and poor
hearing. So we worked with her to get
her, you know, glasses and get her,
hearing aid,
and then focus on some of the behavioral
mental components.
This was a couple years ago, she's thriving.
She, you know, she otherwise is probably a
child who, you know, we was on a
trajectory to drop out of school and not,
you know, not complete her education. So there's
about a 100,000,000
stories now. That's probably a bit of an
exaggeration. But we have so many stories like
that where,
it's the it's going into the schools, getting
kids where they're at, meeting kids where they're
at, and getting them the services and health
care that they need,
and keeping them in school, helping them stay
educated, keeping them healthy, preventing them from coming
to the hospital.
Yeah. And so,
so that story is pretty
fun to tell and easy for people to
understand. And so I'm confident that we're gonna
find ways to fund this program and which
is gonna grow the way we want it
to because it is such an easy story
to tell, but it is,
as you say, we are on the phone
and in, face to face discussions with,
all of our,
advocacy
experts and legislators,
trying to make sure that every kid has
the access to so they can be another
story like the one I just shared.
Gotcha. No. Thank you so much for sharing
that, Matt. And it I think it really
shines a light on
the interconnectivity
between
education and health care, which I think is
becoming much more of,
an initiative that
health systems like yourself want to take on
and rightfully so because I think it's
as you know, it's beneficial to to patients
in so many ways.
Lastly, Matt, you mentioned
so many opportunities that
many children many family children
has
for growth. Are there any that you wanna
spotlight now in addition to the Thrive Kids
program? I absolutely. So,
one and I think I briefly mentioned this,
but I would I wanna highlight the work
that the team is doing because I think
it's I think it's probably one of our,
biggest opportunities for growth, and that's in our
center for cancer and blood disorders,
and specifically sickle cell patients. So we have
a high number of sickle cell patients in
this region,
high population. And
we are the only accredited program in Louisiana
for pediatric stem cell transplant.
Also, the only program in Louisiana and really
the Gulf South approved for gene therapy treatment,
which is life changing, life saving, both of
those are.
And so,
we are we've seen tremendous growth,
as we've grown the you know, grown that
program,
and I just I it's it's I mean,
I it feels, you know, it's such so
cool to be a part of this. We're,
like, medical, you know, history.
We're we're we're on the early, you know,
we're in the early phase of that. It's
really fun to watch and,
you know, nice to see that the again,
that Gulf South from Louisiana,
Mississippi, even in the parts of Alabama and
the Florida Panhandle,
geographically closer to New Orleans than many of
the other major metropolitan areas and being able
to,
provide these life changing, life altering, truly life
saving services,
for
our, cancer patients, but specifically our sickle cell
patient population
is amazing. Our team is fantastic, and I
believe that that's where, you know, maybe the
next time we talk, I'll be I'll be
bragging about some major growth,
that we're seeing there because it's it's a
fantastic program and something so much needed especially
for kids in this particular region of the
country.
I certainly hope so, Matt. That's the greatest
reason as any to be proud of. Right?
So,
yeah, Matt, thank you so much for being
on the podcast today and sharing everything going
on. Well, a lot of things. Maybe not
everything, but so many of the great things
going on down at Manning Family Children's. Yeah.
We can't wait to see you when you're
here in April for our conference and any
other time from here after that.
Thank you, Chris. I appreciate the invite to
to share a little bit more about what's
going on here, and I look forward to
seeing you in April.