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Children’s highlights new Arthur M. Blank Hospital, rural pediatric scholarships and monthly PANS clinic
Summary
A Children’s Health representative told a legislative committee the system handles heavy pediatric volume, operates state-unique specialty services at the Arthur M. Blank Hospital and is funding rural partnerships and scholar-ships to place pediatric clinicians in underserved counties.
Mr. Smith, a representative of Children’s Health, told a legislative committee that the hospital system treats roughly 245,000 emergency-department visits annually and receives more than 12,000 transfers from other Georgia hospitals each year. “We operate the only pediatric level 1 trauma center in the state,” he said, adding that the system also runs “the only, level 4 NICU in the state.”
Smith said Children’s offers more than 60 specialties, trained 771 residents and fellows who did clinical rotations at Children’s last year, and that roughly 316 of those rotations were pediatric specialties. He described the new Arthur M. Blank Hospital on the North Druid Hills campus as an expansion from about 330 beds at the prior Eggleston facility to 446 beds and a campus footprint that grew from about 7 acres to about 76 acres.
Smith briefed members on Children’s rural initiative in partnership with Mercer University School of Medicine and the Georgia Health Rural Health Innovation Center. He said the program has four components: rural hospital support (focusing on emergency departments), assistance to rural pediatric and family-medicine practices, behavioral and mental-health supports including screenings and case management with school districts, and a clinician-scholar pipeline. “Children’s has partnered with the Mercer School of Medicine, to sponsor 10, pediatrician scholarships per year, with the requirement that after residency they practice in a rural county for for 4 years,” Smith said. He added the program was expanded this past year to include five marriage-and-family-therapist scholarships.
Smith gave counts for the coming 2025 year: the rural program covers 33 counties, 21 rural hospitals, 20 pediatrician/family-medicine practices and three rural school districts. He also described a newly opened multidisciplinary clinic for complex neuropsychiatric conditions associated with pediatric infections such as PANS/PANDAS; the clinic is scheduled for one session per month.
During questions, Representative Mitchell asked how Children’s sustains its payer mix—about 56% Medicaid, Smith said—and what aspects could be replicated elsewhere; Smith credited community support and philanthropy. Representative Jasper asked how counties and school districts were selected for behavioral-health work; Smith said Mercer’s Rural Health Innovation Center leads selection using its needs assessments. A legislator who toured the campus asked about art and music therapy expansion; Smith said he would follow up with details on how those programs are organized within Children’s behavioral-health services.
The presentation included several operational metrics Smith used to describe case severity and training volume, including a pediatric case-mix index comparison and the system’s annual transfer volume. Smith repeatedly framed the rural-scholarship program as an effort to address counties without pediatricians and to build a cumulative pipeline of clinicians for rural Georgia.
The committee session then moved to the next presenter, Department of Community Health leadership.
