St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, announced that it has received commitments for a second round of financial support from some of Philadelphia’s most prominent health care and higher education organizations.
The funding from Jefferson Health, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, Temple Health and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia acknowledges St. Christopher’s critical role in maintaining the health and well-being of the region’s children and their families and the vital service the hospital provides in training the next generation of physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals.
The current two-year funding totals approximately $30 million. In June 2022, almost $50 million was committed to St. Christopher’s by the same institutions. Independence Health Group was instrumental in bringing these leading organizations together to support the hospital in both funding rounds.
The initial assistance helped provide St. Christopher’s time to develop and implement strategies to regain its financial stability following its 2019 purchase out of bankruptcy by Drexel University and Tower Health. The hospital worked successfully during that time to solidify other funding sources to help it maintain and expand the vital services it provides to an underserved community facing significant, longstanding obstacles to accessing quality health care.
“I am extremely grateful to these institutions that play such an important role in the health of our region, for again coming together to support St. Christopher’s,” said Robert Brooks, MBA, FACHE, president and interim CEO of St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. “Their partnership is an acknowledgement of the extraordinary impact St. Chris continues to have in delivering outstanding pediatric care to children and families in Philadelphia and across the region, and the vital role the hospital plays in educating hundreds of physicians, nurses, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, radiology and medical lab technicians, and more, each year.”
St. Christopher’s also received support in July, when Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker signed a bill adding St. Christopher’s to the Philadelphia Hospital Assessment — a joint city, state and federal program that provides substantial funding to hospitals that serve a high number of patients insured by Medicaid.
The program is designed to offset the impact of low Medicaid reimbursement rates, which cover less than the cost of providing care to patients. About 85% of St. Christopher’s patients are insured by Medicaid, which is the highest percentage of Medicaid patients served by any children’s hospital in the nation. The five-year Assessment funding cycle will provide a significant boost to St. Christopher’s, allowing the hospital to strategically grow its services and expand its outreach.
In addition, since returning to nonprofit status in 2019, St. Christopher’s fundraising has increased from $500,000 in fiscal year 2020 to more than $4 million in fiscal year 2024.
The results of St. Christopher’s strategic efforts, and the support received from its community partners, are evident in two significant areas over the past two years: increased patient volume and substantial additions in staffing — both key indicators of the beginning of St. Christopher’s shift from stability to growth.
In fiscal year 2024 (July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024), St. Christopher’s hired 283 new staff members, including 117 nurses and 17 physicians. In just the first quarter of the current fiscal year, 347 new employees have joined the hospital, including 152 nurses and 29 physicians.
The increase in clinical staffing has allowed the hospital to open more beds to help meet the significant medical needs of the pediatric patients in the community, and to accept a dramatically increased number of trauma patients and critical care transfers requiring specialized pediatric services. St. Christopher’s is a regional referral center for more than 50 hospitals and other facilities and has the only pediatric burn unit between New York City and Baltimore.
As St. Christopher’s financial progress has been ongoing, the hospital has further enhanced its focus on clinical quality and patient safety as its top priorities. The results of those efforts have been recognized by national organizations.
In March 2024, the American Nurses Credentialing Center awarded St. Christopher’s the hospital’s fourth consecutive Magnet designation, the highest national honor for professional nursing practice. Fewer than 10% of U.S. hospitals achieve the prestigious recognition, with just 1% of those being children’s hospitals. St. Christopher’s received its first four-year Magnet designation in 2009; in this latest re-designation, ANCC recognized an exceptionally high 10 clinical areas in which the hospital excels, known as “exemplars,” a level reached by only a small percentage of hospitals nationwide.
In July, Newsweek magazine named St. Christopher’s to its ranking of America’s Best Children’s Hospitals, citing St. Christopher’s orthopedics program as among the nation’s top specialty programs.
Brooks emphasized that despite these positive steps, St. Christopher’s role as the primary safety-net hospital for children in Philadelphia, along with Medicaid’s low-reimbursement funding formula, means its financial challenges will be ongoing.
“That makes partner support and philanthropy critical to supplementing any government assistance,” Brooks said. “We know we face significant obstacles as we continue to deliver on St. Christopher’s mission of improving the health and well-being of the community, in Philadelphia and far beyond. But as we prepare to celebrate St. Christopher’s 150th anniversary, we’re grateful for this continuing support, and I could not be more confident and excited about how bright the future is for St. Chris.”