HOSPITALS:

UCI Ties; Pediatrics Chief in Dual Role

Children’s Hospital of Orange County recently cut the ribbon on the newest addition to its Orange campus: The Fetal Care Center of Southern California.

The 2,200-square-foot facility is joined by an adjacent outpatient heart center and cost a combined $5.25 million to build. It was made possible through a collaboration between CHOC and UCI Health, and started receiving patients on June 16.

“Maternal-fetal medicine programs are difficult to establish because there are really two patients: mom and baby,” said Peter Yu, medical director of the fetal care center and a pediatric surgeon.

The fetal care center brings together maternal-fetal medicine specialists, neonatologists and pediatric cardiologists to offer consultation, diagnostics, treatment planning and after-birth care to families in one place.

The facility is on the sixth floor of CHOC’s 13-story Commerce Tower office building on Main Street. That tower is located across from the main hospital.

Surgery Center Next

Fetal anomalies such as congenital heart disease or lung masses affect 1% to 3% of pregnancies—or roughly 1,500 of pregnancies—in OC every year, Yu said.

About 10% of these babies won’t live prenatally without treatment, and a number of these babies require surgery immediately following birth.

The facility, expected to be followed by a fetal surgery center opening in 2024, is one of many signs of close collaboration between the two research-focused health systems.

Last October, the systems jointly announced Coleen Cunningham as the chair of the department of pediatrics at the UCI School of Medicine and the pediatricianin-chief at CHOC.

Cunningham joined the organizations from Duke University, where she served as a professor in the division of pediatric infectious diseases, as chief of global health, and vice chair for research in the department of pediatrics.

In the dual role, she leads academic research and teaching programs, and serves as the key physician executive liaison between CHOC and UCI. CHOC and UCI originally entered hospital and physician affiliation agreements in 2008. •