Patient/Family Affiliation Resource
Welcome to our Franciscan Children’s – Boston Children’s Affiliation Patient and Family Resource Page. This page was designed to provide you with information and resources regarding our exciting new affiliation with Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH). This page will be continually updated to keep you informed throughout the process.
Our affiliation with Boston Children’s is first and foremost about helping children in need.
We are in the midst of a children’s behavioral health crisis, and our affiliation will allow us to dramatically increase access to the care that children and families deserve. It will also allow us to build on our longstanding partnership in treating children with complex medical needs. We will make much-needed investments in community-based prevention programs, our workforce, treatment and research, as well as modernize our Franciscan Children’s campus.
Our affiliation is an opportunity to create a transformative new model of children’s behavioral and rehabilitative care, better serving the needs of our community and the children and families we serve, so every kid can.
This is a very exciting time for Franciscan Children’s, and we appreciate your support!
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the expected impact for children and families at Franciscan Children’s over time?
This affiliation will allow Franciscan Children’s (FC) to help more children and families receive the quality care they need. We plan to do this by providing our children and families with:
- A transformative care delivery model
While we have successfully partnered with BCH over many years as separate institutions, there are limits to our coordination. In formally bringing together two leading pediatric institutions (FC and BCH), we have an opportunity to reimagine care delivery across both campuses and develop a more thoughtful, impactful, and high-quality system of care. Together, we will transform behavioral health and complex medical care for children.
- A modernized campus befitting our mission and commitment to children and families
We have been working collaboratively with BCH to develop a plan to modernize our aging campus, including a new state-of-the-art building that will house our inpatient behavioral health, inpatient medical and rehabilitation programs.
Our affiliation will allow us to make important investments to our infrastructure such as our IT department and electronic medical records system which are crucial for patient care. Franciscan, along with BCH, will switch to EPIC, the gold standard system for electronic health records.
This affiliation will allow us to dramatically improve the care and services we offer our children and families through better coordination, technology and infrastructure.
What are the plans for the modernization of the Franciscan Children’s campus?
This affiliation will make significant investments to modernize the FC campus, which dates back to the 1940s. The plan envisions major improvements to our campus, including:
- New inpatient building: We will build a new state-of-the-art inpatient building on our campus that will have the latest technology and tools to support innovative treatment and research and promote parental engagement and family support. This building will feature single rooms for our pediatric post-acute rehabilitative care and inpatient behavioral health patients as well as add much-needed family spaces.
The new building will allow us to help more children by increasing the number of beds for FC’s inpatient medical rehabilitative and behavioral health programs, as well as allow space for the development of new programs to meet the rising need.
How will this help improve rehabilitative care for children with complex medical needs?
The modernization of the FC campus will provide more beds for children who need our specialized post-acute care. We are the only hospital that cares for infants on ventilators. Oftentimes these kids have to wait in an acute care hospital until a bed opens at Franciscan’s.
It will also allow us to dramatically expand services and improve care for children with complex medical needs and include a new signature rehabilitation facility that doesn’t exist anywhere else in this region.
BCH and FC also are leaders in providing dental care and surgery to children with complex medical and behavioral health needs. Through our affiliation, we will be able to invest in and grow our Dental Clinic and Dental Operating Rooms in order to provide these specialized services to more children.
Will you continue to maintain all care services? Will you be consolidating or closing services?
This affiliation will not lead to the closure of any existing services – on the contrary, it will enable us to enhance the programs and services we provide and allow us to help more children and families.
Will this affiliation cause any disruptions to the care my child receives at Franciscan Children’s?
Our children and families remain our top priority. We will continue to care for every child who comes to us from any and all hospitals for the specialty care we provide. There will be no difference in the care your child receives or in your child’s physicians, therapists or specialists. The affiliation will not change that.