Expanding Pediatric Care Across South Texas with Eric Hamon

0:00Welcome back to the Healthcare Podcast. I'm Chris Socio, your host, and I'll be joining 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 33 years, started when I was five years old. The story of Driscoll, you know, I'm going to start with the will of our founder, Claire Driscoll in 1945, 1945. She left her entire estate to the Children of South Texas with the stipulation that it would be used for those kids of South Texas regardless of their ability to pay. And a couple years later, about eight years later in 1953, we opened a 25-bed hospital in Corpus Christi and have expanded that now

1:07at 377 beds as of 2026 and continue to grow. Our market, you know, I want to say it's like a, it's like a triangle from Port La Vaca, Texas, just south of Port La Vaca to Eagle Pass, down to Brownsville at the tip of South Texas. It's about 33,000 square miles literally in that footprint. You could fit South Carolina. So that's the market that we've been serving since 1953 and continue to grow. A big picture, that's what we serve. In addition to that, healthcare, we also have an insurance product, Driscoll Health Plan, where we manage Medicaid lives just under 200 Medicaid lives in that footprint as well. And, you know, we basically do all the pediatric specialties that a children's hospital would provide. And we are the only standalone children's hospital,

2:10South 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 operationally have responsibility for 250 NICU beds. So we manage NICU beds in Victoria, Texas, Laredo, Brownsville, Harlingen, McAllen, and Corpus Christie. So we really have our footprint and a lot of the cities that we serve. Thank you for sharing that Eric. It's certainly an immense footprint that Driscoll children is working on. And we're getting into a little bit about how you go about covering all those children in the area a little bit. But I do want to talk about the Driscoll Children's Hospital Rio Grand Valley, and how that evolved 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 Grand Valley and upper Rio Grand Valley was the families and the burden that they

3:14were having for having to drive up from Brownsville or McAllen or Edinburgh. It's about a two and a half hour drive to Corpus and two and a half back. So it was 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 want to 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 Edinburgh area where those families did not have to travel five hours. 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, in some cases, 30 days, how difficult that is for a family to have to leave home for 30 plus days.

4:16And we just wanted to bring that health care to them closer to home. Makes perfect sense. Thank you, Eric. So now that the hospitals have been open a few years, what ways do you expect it to grow? You know, we're going to grow all of our markets. You know, number one, DCHRGV, 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 18 months, we added 60 specialists. That's planning on growing over the next 12 months. We're going to add another 20 to 25 specialists. So two things, we're going to add beds. And then we're going to add depth to our already existing pediatrics of specialty care in that market. And we're also looking at some outpatient locations within the McGowan, Edinburgh, Westlaco, Brownsville areas. And then if you had a little bit west to Laredo, which is about an hour and a half away, we're going to build a new

5:22facility, about a 75,000 square foot clinic in Laredo. And we're going to add another 25,000 in Brownsville, Texas. That's called it South East of McGowan, Edinburgh. So really, in our markets with 200,000 or more, including Corpus Christi, we're really going to 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 learn something every day. And what we learn in our desire is the delivery of care that we provide. It's just never good enough. We have a strong appetite to continue to always grow and do better. And so what we think we're going to do is just continue to provide the care that we do for these kids. Knowing that tomorrow, we want to do better than what we did today. That's the worthwhile goal, certainly, Eric. And hopefully you guys are

6:25well on your way to achieving that. Even though, as you said, it's never good enough, right? So one aspect that I was fascinated to learn about this, Eric, that such spiritual children as part is you have a fleet of planes in a house, physicians and treat children in all sorts of areas. You said your footprint is about the size of South Carolina. That's just the best. So can you please share as much as you like about how this initiative is involved and what makes it stand out to you? Sure. And so in the spirit of the, you know, the, the will that I talked about with Clare Driscoff 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, Holland, and McGowan to take time away from work for a 30-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 10 years ago with

7:30how can we provide care to these kids in our market so that they don't miss their clinic visits? And so we worked with a local partner, a nonprofit, and we've got six claims 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 going to 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 costs 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

8:36those 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 have hauled airplanes as far as I know. Have you heard of any other such system putting together this sort of initiative? You know, 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 taken physicians and nurses and equipment to the markets that they serve. And we're going to 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 investing in these communities, Laredo, Brownsville Harvins, and where we're recruiting physicians to those markets as well.

9:40So 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 there ever a possibility where your footprint, physical footprint will be large enough that these planes will no longer be necessary or is this something that you plan to keep on using as far as into 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 dog years, but I would say that we're going to continue to fly to those markets. We want to develop the markets and add physicians, but I think that flights are going to continue for the foreseeable future. Gotcha. Thanks for sharing that, Eric. Again, that's a program. It just blows my mind and this is something that a health system is able to do, but obviously it's a huge benefit to your patients. And I was just going to say, you know, we're

10:43proud of a lot of things, but 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 rooms. So we believe that it's just a great community service for these kids and the families. On that note, let me ask you this. So it's been 10 years in the making more or less. It's been going on 10 years, I should say. So how, what was the process of getting everyone on board to forgive a terrible pun 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 rolling together and we know that the only reason we

11:43show up every single morning, every single day is for the kids. And when you think about the program that we started 10 plus years ago is there's no downside to getting up in the morning, getting on a plane and going to deliver care to kids in our market. Got it. Thank you so much again, Eric. So the last question I want to 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 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 0 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 they get older. And then the other one is more financial that I think that I'd

12:46like to place a spotlight on is Medicaid is paid about 30% 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 going to all have to figure out that we want to 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 going to have to figure that out as a country moving forward. Otherwise, we're going to continue to have the shortages. And so if you make those investments now, they're going to be healthier when they're 45. Eric has 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 the audience, but any number of your colleagues in the very near future.

13:51Yeah, we can't wait to the next time our pass draws. I can't wait. Thank you for having me. I'll look forward to maybe doing it again in any time you're in the South Texas or Corpus and considerate home. Combine, visit us.