For many families, one of the hardest parts of pediatric care is knowing where to turn when a child needs more than a routine visit. A parent may start with a pediatrician, urgent care center, emergency department, or local hospital, only to learn their child needs specialty expertise that may not be available in that setting.
Children’s hospitals have long served as regional anchors for highly specialized pediatric care. At the same time, children’s health systems increasingly need to think beyond a single campus and create models that connect families to pediatric expertise through more points of access.
That is why affiliations between children’s hospitals and community health systems can be so valuable. When designed well, they can extend pediatric capabilities into more communities while preserving the depth, standards, and coordination that children’s hospitals are built to provide.
At Nicklaus Children’s Health System, our affiliation with Broward Health reflects this approach. The collaboration started this year, with Nicklaus Children’s becoming the pediatric provider at Broward Health hospitals in Fort Lauderdale and Coral Springs as well as at related outpatient specialty offices.
For families in Broward County, Florida, that means more direct access to Nicklaus Children’s pediatric expertise without always needing to travel to our hospital in Miami-Dade County. It also means children who need more specialized care can be connected to a broader pediatric system with established programs, subspecialists, and care pathways.
The affiliation is not simply about adding new locations to a map. It is about building a more connected model of pediatric care across South Florida, one that recognizes how families actually seek care and how stressful the system can feel when a child’s needs become more complex.
Broward Health brings a long-standing community presence and deep local relationships. Nicklaus Children’s brings pediatric-specific clinical programs, subspecialty expertise, and the operating model of a children’s health system focused entirely on children.
The early results of the affiliation illustrate what this combination can make possible. One of the clearest examples is the introduction of bedside patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) closures at Broward Health. PDA closure is a minimally invasive procedure to close a blood vessel that normally seals shortly after birth but remains open in some premature infants. Nicklaus Children’s specialists travel from Miami with everything needed to provide the treatment without moving the infant out of the neonatal intensive care unit; they’ve already performed nine of these procedures at Broward Health NICUs.
The affiliation has also required the organizations to connect their systems. Approximately 250 community physicians were credentialed to continue caring for pediatric patients. A Nicklaus Children’s Hospital service area was also created within Broward Health’s electronic medical record system, allowing pediatric care to remain connected to the hospital’s supporting services while operating within a distinct pediatric model.
Together, these early results show that an affiliation must become more than an agreement between institutions. Its value is demonstrated when the partnership creates capabilities that did not previously exist and makes care easier for families to understand and access.
A parent should not need to understand the inner workings of a health system to feel confident that their child is receiving appropriate care or being connected to the right next step.
The Broward affiliation also reflects a broader challenge facing children’s hospitals nationally. Pediatric expertise is highly specialized, but access cannot depend only on one central campus, especially as communities grow and family needs change.
Children’s hospitals will increasingly need to think about how their expertise reaches families across a broader network. That may include community partnerships, outpatient specialty offices, emergency care relationships, virtual care, and transfer pathways that make the full system easier to navigate.
For children’s hospitals, this means approaching affiliations as care-model strategies rather than market strategies alone. The question is not only whether a partnership expands a footprint, but whether it improves access, strengthens continuity, and helps families feel more supported when they need pediatric expertise.
The most meaningful pediatric partnerships are built around a simple idea: Children should receive the right care, in the right setting, as close to home as safely possible.
Sometimes that will mean care at a freestanding children’s hospital, and sometimes it will mean bringing children’s hospital expertise into a community setting that families already know.
For Nicklaus Children’s and Broward Health, the affiliation is one example of how children’s hospitals can extend their mission while responding to the needs of growing communities. It is a reminder that access is not only about geography, and integration is not only about operations. It is about building a system that feels clearer, more connected, and more responsive for families.
