In honor of our 100th anniversary, every month in 2024 we’re sharing stories and images from the Children’s Minnesota archives. Each month features a different decade. Here we continue with the 2000s.
The years 2000 to 2009 saw change on several fronts: our culture, our physical footprint, even our name. And amid all these shifts, a new Children’s Minnesota star was born.
Jump back in time and read about Children’s Minnesota in the 1990s, 1980s, 1970s, 1960s, 1950s, 1940s, 1930s and the 1920s.
The 2000s
Patient safety in the national spotlight
In 2000, Children’s Minnesota was more than just its Minneapolis and St. Paul hospitals. It also included five pediatric clinics in Burnsville, Minnetonka, Roseville, Shakopee and Woodbury “offering excellent care and convenience for children and families” according to that year’s annual report.
“Developing ambulatory was really big in the 2000s. The idea was that we shouldn’t just be a place people have to drive to, we need to go to them,” recalls Patsy Stinchfield, RN, MS, CPNP-PC and former senior director of infection prevention and control at Children’s Minnesota.
Even bigger was a shift in culture regarding patient safety. The new patient safety program at “Children’s Hospitals and Clinics” (our name at the time) was featured as a cover story in a 2000 issue of U.S. News and World Report.
Patient safety had always been the top priority, but a new patient safety philosophy shifted responsibility from individual staff members to our entire organization.
From the 2003 annual report: “Traditionally medical errors were blamed on the individual who was closest to the bedside when an accident or harm to a patient occurred. Now it’s understood that safety is achieved by creating systems that support staff and by building a culture of reporting and learning from risks, not blaming individuals.”
“That was a really exciting time because we were including everyone in the organization,” recalls Adriene Thornton, RN and manager of health equity at Children’s Minnesota. “Everyone started learning about and becoming part of our safety culture. For the first time we had people in environmental services not afraid to walk up to a physician and say, ‘Hey, don’t forget to wash ‘em proud.’ That was a big jump. Before, some staff wouldn’t have dreamed of saying anything to a doctor except hello.”
Another merger?
The idea of joining forces with another hospital didn’t end when Children’s Hospital of St. Paul and Minneapolis Children’s Health Center merged in 1994. During the early 2000s, leaders of Children’s Hospitals and Clinics and the University of Minnesota children’s hospital were working to figure out a way to create, according to a 2006 Star Tribune article, “one world-class pediatric hospital instead of two competing institutions each with its own medical specialists and high-tech equipment.”
The joint effort would not come to pass. Negotiations ended in 2006 with Children’s President and CEO Alan Goldbloom saying, “We knew…this would be an extremely complex undertaking. The discussions were open and constructive, but the outcome was disappointing for all. Nevertheless, we remain committed to building on our strengths and ensuring that children in this region receive care that is second to none.”
The “building” would literally begin the next year, with Children’s Hospitals and Clinics announcing a $300 million expansion of its St. Paul and Minneapolis campuses.
Talks end over costs to build kids’ hospital
Fairview, Children’s and Allina were planning to combine pediatric care into a new facility, but that has been scrapped
By Glenn Howatt
Some in the health care industry thought that finally, after 10 years of off-and-on merger talks, the metro area would have one world-class pediatric hospital instead of two competing institutions each with its own medical specialists and high-tech equipment.
But after four months of intensive negotiations, the latest effort to merge Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota with the University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital came to an unsuccessful end Friday.
“We just couldn’t make it work,” said Dr. Frank Cerra, senior vice president for health sciences at the University of Minnesota. “We worked to take all of the pieces and pull them together in a way that makes financial sense, but found it was just no possible.”
In May, the leadership of both organizations, along with Allina Hospitals and Clinics, said they would try to make the deal happen.
Instead, the teams working on the details of a proposed merger determined this week that there were too many financial barriers to make a new merged children’s hospital successful.
The university, along with its hospital partner Fairview Health Services will most likely proceed with earlier plans to build a new children’s hospital.
“We need to take our old facilities for kids and really get them up to par,” Cerra said. Currently, the university has 207 pediatric beds as part of its main hospital on campus.
Children’s Hospitals, which has 326 beds at its two hospitals in Minneapolis and St. Paul, will reevaluate expansion plans that were underway before the latest round of merger talks.
“We have to look at where the most critical needs are and just take a fresh look at how to best use the land that we have and the resources we have,” said Dr. Alan Goldbloom, Children’s chief executive officer.
Allina was a player, too
This year’s talks were some of many over the past decade to bring together the research and education focus of the university’s hospital with the highly specialized focus of Children’s, which is a leader in neonatal care, cancer and heart defect treatment.
In most major cities, pediatric care is usually centered in one major hospital that is closely affiliated with a university.
Optimism about these talks was raised when Allina Health System, which had not participated in earlier talks, said it favored the idea. Because Allina’s Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis and United Hospital in St. Paul are adjacent to Children’s hospitals and work closely with them, its cooperation was seen as key.
But despite cost savings that could come from eliminating duplication of expensive technology, other aspects of the combination made it economically unfeasible.
“If we had just one or two problems, my conviction is that we could have focused the energies and desire and most probably could have overcome the problems,” said David Page, Fairview’s chief executive. “There was just a long list of problems, and we just couldn’t find any one answer to make them work.”
However, the talks did break down some of the barriers that have existed among the doctors of both groups, the executives said.
Unlike previous breakdowns of the merger discussions, the executives don’t expect them to start up again.
“I don’t anticipate that this is going to reemerge,” Goldbloom said.
Goodbye Porky Chops, hello Dude
For more than 25 years our patients and their families enjoyed The Wishing Well Show, featuring Kathi Rokke and her puppet Porky Chops. Starting in the late 1970s, the show was produced in a basement studio in Abbott Northwestern Hospital and shown inside our hospitals, entertaining kids during their stay.
By 2007, the studio had closed, and Rokke retired. Production was moved to our Minneapolis hospital and our in-house entertainment was reborn as “Star Studio.” The first show, “Can Can Cafe,” aired in early 2008, introducing Star Studio producer and popular on-air personality, The Dude.
More photos from the Children’s Minnesota archives, circa 2000s (click to enlarge)
Stay tuned to our From the Archives blogs! Next month will feature Children’s Minnesota in the 20-teens.
Celebrating a century of care: Children’s Minnesota turns 100
Children’s Minnesota has been here for 100 years. And it’s all because of you: the people who bring their kids here, the ones who work here, the partners who refer their young patients for specialty treatment, the donors who support us, and the community who rallies around the families in our hospitals. Join us in celebrating a century of care — and a bright, healthy future for Minnesota kids.
