Collaborative Will Expand Child Health Services While Leveraging Expertise at Both Campuses and Throughout Southern California 

Two leading children’s hospitals—UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, part of UCLA Health, and Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital Long Beach, part of MemorialCare Health System—announced today their intent to form a strategic affiliation that brings together their academic, clinical and research expertise and resources to enhance children’s health care services in Southern California.

The two organizations, which share similar missions and values, plan to establish a wider geographic pediatric collaborative that strengthens and broadens their ability to offer the highest quality, patient and family-centered care to their respective and shared communities. In addition to working together with physicians, patients and families, the collaborative will work closely with employers, health plans, public health agencies and other organizations in order to offer children and families high-quality and compassionate care close to home.

UCLA Mattel-Miller Children’s Health Alliance plans to focus on growing pediatric specialty care and the network of pediatricians and pediatric specialists available in the community; adding more outpatient facilities; expanding efforts in managing the health of children; and addressing other opportunities that offer families easier access to highly specialized children’s health services.

In partnership with UC Irvine Health, the organizations intend to collaboratively expand their pediatric residency and medical education programs as well as their nationally recognized centers of excellence for clinical education of residents and fellows in pediatric medicine. This includes residency rotations for pediatric experiences in related medical and surgical specialties as well as establishment of medical and surgical fellowship training programs. UC Irvine Health and Miller Children’s long-standing pediatric residency and teaching relationship will be continued and integrated into the pediatric collaborative. 

“We are extremely pleased at the opportunity to work with Miller Children’s leadership, physicians and staff to expand access to care to more children throughout Southern California,” said Johnese Spisso, president of UCLA Health and CEO of UCLA Hospital System. “This pediatric collaborative will enhance our ability to deliver the right care at the right time for all patients.”

Through joint strategic planning and an expansion of services, both organizations will leverage existing expertise at Miller Children’s and complementary specialty and acute care services from UCLA Mattel to bolster existing programs, further grow clinical and research programs and identify opportunities for future growth of community-based facilities and services.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to leverage both organizations’ exceptional strengths in pediatrics while greatly improving the health and health care of children,” says John Bishop, CEO of Miller Children’s & Women’s Hospital Long Beach, Long Beach Memorial and Community Hospital Long Beach. “Through this collaboration, we’ll expand our ability to provide an even wider range of specialized medical care and tap the resources of UCLA as one of the nation’s leading academic medical centers. In turn, UCLA Mattel Children’s will have access to our exceptional physicians and programs. It’s a win-win for children and families in our communities.”

By bringing together clinical and research teams, these two leading children’s hospitals and their specialty and outpatient pediatric care centers in communities throughout the region will be better positioned to provide comprehensive pediatric health services to meet the unique and growing needs of Southern California families. They will work closely with community pediatricians and other clinicians and providers to create a combined network to improve children’s access to care. 

The two organizations are among a small number of health care providers nationwide with children’s and women’s as well as adult hospitals on the same campus. This means that both UCLA Mattel and Miller Children’s are uniquely positioned to provide children a lifetime of care in a single location. UCLA Mattel is on the UCLA campus with sister facilities Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA. Miller Children’s shares a campus with Long Beach Memorial, a major teaching hospital.

The two children’s hospitals already have a hematology/oncology cancer partnership at Miller Children’s that embodies the commitment of both hospitals to provide the highest level of research-based clinical care in a supportive, nurturing environment convenient for children and families. The new strategic affiliation will form the basis for continued collaboration and enhanced pediatric services across Southern California.