Pursuing New Opportunities: Pace Picks Up at UCSF Benioff Children’s Oakland
by Joan Trezek
For more than 100 years, Children’s Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, CA, has been the go-to facility for tertiary pediatric care in San Francisco’s East Bay. That hasn’t changed, but a great deal about the hospital today is very different from how it was positioned even 10 years ago.
One significant change is a new name reflecting its recent partnership with UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital (see sidebar, p. 3). Another change is the facility’s recent focus on pediatric sports medicine.
Specialty care clinics: a work in progress
The Oakland hospital, which provides pediatric services exclusively, has long recognized the benefit of reaching out from its home base into suburban communities where demand exists for select specialty services.
Starting in 1995, a series of four Specialty Care Clinics (SCCs) were established in outlying counties some distance from the Oakland site. The services at those clinics varied depending on the needs of the community. One, for example, offered an eye clinic and conducted ophthalmological research, in addition to other services.
Perhaps the most impressive in terms of size, design, and range of services was the SCC located in a suburban office park in Walnut Creek, CA, approximately 25 miles from the hospital. The 40,000-square-foot clinic offers diagnostic imaging, outpatient surgery, a sleep lab, a hearing and speech center, and specialty care in areas including endocrinology and urology.
The hospital’s 2013 annual report indicates some 1,100 outpatient surgery cases at the Walnut Creek satellite and a total of 13,000 visits.