Welcome to Beckwith Healthcare Podcast. I'm Chris Sosa,
your host. And I'm going to be joined
today by Eric Hammond. He's president and CEO
of Driscoll Children's Hospital in Texas.
Eric, thank you for joining us today. Thank
you. Glad to be here. Appreciate it.
Awesome. Thank you, Eric. So for those who
are maybe not familiar with yourself and Driscoll
Children's, could you please introduce,
yourself and let us know a little bit
about it?
Sure. I'd be happy to. Again, Eric Hammond,
system
CEO for Driscoll Health System since 2018
and have been with Driscoll now going on
thirty three years. Started when I was five
years old.
The, the the story of Driscoll,
you know, I'd I'm gonna start with the
the will of our founder, Claire Driscoll. In
'45,
1945,
she left her entire estate
to the children of South Texas
with the stipulation that it would be used
for for those kids of South Texas regardless
of their ability to pay.
And couple years later, about eight years later
in 1953,
we opened a 25 bed,
hospital in Corpus Christi
and have expanded that now to 377
beds,
as of 2026
and continue to grow.
Our market,
you know, I I wanna say it's like
a it's like a triangle from Port Lavaca,
Texas just south of, Port Lavaca to Eagle
Pass
down to Brownsville
at the tip of South Texas.
It's about 33,000
square miles literally in that footprint.
You can fit South Carolina.
And so that's the market,
that we've been serving since 1953
and and continue to grow.
But big picture, that's what we serve.
In addition to that, health care, we also
have an insurance product,
Driscoll Health Plan, where we manage,
Medicaid lives, just under 200 Medicaid lives in
that, in that footprint as well.
And, you know, we we, basically do all
the pediatric specialties that a children's hospital,
would provide. And we are the only stand
alone children's hospital
South Of San Antonio
and,
Houston, and the only level four NICU.
In addition to that, what we do is
in that footprint that I just described,
we we operationally
have responsibility
for 250
NICU beds.
So we manage NICU beds in Victoria, Texas,
Laredo,
Brownsville,
Harlingen,
McAllen, and Corpus Christi. So,
we really have our footprint in a lot
of the cities that we serve.
Thank you for sharing that, Eric. It's certainly
an immense footprint that Driscoll Children's is working
on. And we're gonna get into a little
bit about how you go about covering all
those children in the area a little bit.
But I do wanna talk about, the Driscoll
Children's
Hospital Rio Grande Valley and how that evolved
and and how it enhances care access since
you opened it in 2024.
Well, it started,
you know, a little bit before 2018 before
I became CEO. But what we were noticing
from the Lower Rio Grande Valley and Upper
Rio Grande Valley
was the families and the burden that they
were having for having to drive up from
Brownsville or McGowan
or Edinburgh.
It's about a two and a half hour,
drive to Corpus and two and a half
back, so it's five hours.
And it was really difficult for families.
And so we met our administrative team met
with our board in 2018
and said, you know what? We believe
that health care is local,
and we wanna take a quality product to
the McAllen Edinburgh market,
and provide the care to the kids closer
to home. So that's really was a driving
point in 2018
was to really
provide a quality product in the McAllen,
Edinburg area where those families
did not have to travel
five hours and and it's for a really
sick kid. Think about it this way. If
you've got a really sick kid that has
to spend time in the hospital
for five days, third for in some cases,
thirty days, how difficult that is for a
family to have to leave home
for thirty plus days.
And we just wanted to to bring that
health care to them closer to home.
Makes perfect sense. Thank you, Eric. So now
that the hospital's been open a few years,
in what ways do you expect it to
grow?
You know, we're gonna grow all of our
markets. You know, number one, DCH RGV,
we're we're in the process of expanding 15
ICU beds.
So just a little less than two years,
we're already adding 15 ICU beds to that
market.
The first,
eighteen months, we added 60 specialists.
That's planning on growing over the next twelve
months. We're gonna add another 20 to 25
specialists.
So two things. We're gonna add beds, and
then we're gonna add depth to our already
existing pediatric subspecialty care in that market. And
we're also looking at some outpatient locations
within the McGowan,
Edinburg,
West Laco,
Brownsville areas.
And then if you head a little bit,
west to Laredo,
which is about an hour and a half,
away, we're gonna build a new facility about
a 75,000
square foot clinic
in Laredo,
and we're gonna add another 25,000
in Brownsville, Texas that's,
call it Southeast
of McAllen, Edinburg. So really, in our markets
with 200,000
or more including Corpus Christi, we're really gonna
grow.
That's a crazy amount of growth, it sounds
like to me, Eric. What would you say
that you've learned
as a system and as a leader
in working on these projects? Because
it's just a lot, but, obviously, they're worthwhile.
Well, we we, you know, we learn something
every day, and and what we learn in
our our desire is the delivery of care
that we provide is just never good enough.
We have a strong appetite
to continue to always grow,
and and do better.
And so
what we think we're gonna do is just
continue to provide the care that we do
for these kids, knowing that tomorrow, we wanna
do better than what we did today.
That's a worthwhile goal, certainly, Eric. And and,
hopefully, you guys are well on your way
to achieving that even though, as you said,
it's never good enough. Right?
So one aspect,
it was fascinating to learn about this, Eric,
that sets traditional children apart is you have
a fleet of planes,
and it allows
physicians to treat children
in all sorts of areas. You said your
footprint is about the size of South Carolina.
That's just immense. So can you please share
as much as you like about how this
initiative evolved and what makes it stand out
to you?
Sure. And so in in the spirit of
the, you know, the the will that I
talked about with Clara Drysgaard, our founder, was
that we wanted to provide
access to quality health care to all children
of South Texas. Right? And so,
you know, it's very difficult for families, whether
they're in Laredo, Brownsville, Harland, and McAllen
to take time away from work for a
thirty minute visit
in Corpus Christi, Texas. So we were seeing
that. So either, a, they wouldn't go or
they wouldn't have access to that care. So
we came up with a plan
about ten years ago with how can we
provide
care to these kids in our market
so that they they don't miss their, clinic
visits. And so we work with a local
partner, a nonprofit,
and we've got six planes who are every
single morning,
physicians,
nurses, equipment
physically leave Corpus Christi
and go to those markets that you're talking
about, Laredo, Brownsville, Victoria,
Harlingen.
And we take the product to those,
moms and dads and the kids because
it's much easier on them. They can then
go to the clinic and then go back
to school or go to school and then
the clinic. And so what we found is
there is a significantly higher probability that if
you take that product to them, they're gonna
they're gonna get that preventive care and stay
out of the emergency room. So it's a
better quality of care, better access,
and it also reduces cost because these kids
are getting that preventive care and they're not
having to end up in the ED. Of
course, we still have emergency,
visits,
but this is one of those products where
there's no doubt that it's reduced the number
of emergency room visits because we've been able
to access these kids at an early stage.
Eric, certainly, there are many hospital systems that
have,
remote care, but they do not involve airplanes
as far as I know. Have you heard
of any other such system putting together this
sort of,
initiative?
You know, I it's I I really have
not,
you know, with my colleagues, got a lot
of great college in Texas and across this
country,
but I'm not aware of any
that have that kind of footprint where they're
actually,
taking physicians
and nurses
and equipment,
to the markets that they serve.
And we're gonna do we're gonna continue to
do this, in the foreseeable future. Now what
we're also doing is we will continue with
these flights, and we're also
simultaneously,
invested in these communities, Laredo, Brownsville, Harlingen, where
we're recruiting physicians
to those markets as well. So it's a
combination of recruitment of the physicians and nurses
as well as the continued flights to those
markets.
Eric, as best you can tell, is is
there ever a possibility
where
your footprints
physical footprint will be large enough that these
planes will no longer be necessary, or is
this something that you plan to keep on
on using as far as
in in the future as you can tell?
You know, I would you know, if I
had to forecast over the next five to
ten years, which in health care, that's like
50,
in in dog years. But,
I would say that we're gonna continue to
fly,
to those markets. We wanna develop the markets
and add physicians,
but I think that flights are gonna continue
for the foreseeable future.
Gotcha. Thanks for sharing that, Eric. Again, that's
a program that just
blows my mind, and this is something that
a health system is able to do. But,
you know, obviously, it's a huge benefit to
your patients.
And I was just gonna say, you know
you know, we're we're proud of a lot
of things, but the this program, we're very
proud of because we know
that if we didn't do it, then these
kids either wouldn't get the care,
or end up in emergency room. So we
believe that it's just a it's a great,
community service for these kids and the families.
On that note, let me ask you this.
So
it's been ten years
in the making more or less. You've it's
been going on ten years, I should say.
So how
what was the process of getting
everyone on board to forgive a terrible pun
in in doing this program?
You know, it was it was really at
the end of the day,
it was it was all about the patient
and taking care of the kid. And so
our governing board and our administrative team,
when we get up in the morning and
we show up,
we are all rowing together. And we know
that the only reason we show up every
single morning, every single day is for the
kids.
And when you think about the program that
we started ten plus years ago
is there's no downside
to getting up in the morning, getting on
a plane, and go deliver care to kids
in our market.
Got it. Thank you so much again, Eric.
So the last question I wanna ask you
today is simply, what is one aspect of
children's health care that deserves a brighter spotlight
in your mind?
You know, if if if I had to
be simplistic,
I would say,
across the country or at Driscoll,
invest
in health care for the kids today. Think
about it. You make the right investments zero
to 18.
When these kids
are 35, 45, 65,
how much better they will be off when
they're when they're older,
adults. So make the investments today
so that you don't have to make those
difficult investments when when they get older. And
then the other one is more financial,
that I think that I'd like to place
a spotlight on is
Medicaid
is paid about 30 percent less than Medicare.
Pick your specialty, whether it's cardiology, pulmonology,
radiology.
If you go to an adult doctor,
they're paid 30%
higher for every specialty than Medicaid.
And at some point, I think we're gonna
all have to figure out that we wanna
have some parity between Medicaid
and Medicare for these doctors because that's one
reason
why there's a shortage
of pediatric specialists in this country is because
the payment
for
pediatrics is 30% less than adults. So I
think we're gonna have to figure that out
as a country moving forward. Otherwise, we're gonna
continue to have the shortages.
And so if you make those investments now,
they're gonna be healthier when they're 45.
Eric, it's been wonderful having you on the
podcast today.
We love all the insights you've been able
to share. Hopefully, you'll be able to share
them, not only with our audience, but any
number of your colleagues in the very near
future.
Yeah. We can't wait to, the next time
our paths cross.
I can't wait. Thank you for having me.
I look forward to maybe doing it again.
And anytime if you're in the South Texas
or Corpus,
consider at home. Come by and visit us.