Dayton Children’s Hospital announced on Monday that the founder of Paychex Inc. Tom Golisano donated $40 million to support preventative care for children across the region.
This is the largest, single philanthropic donation in the hospital’s history.
“We know that two-thirds of our kids who are adolescents do not receive well-child visits. We know that about a third of our children, young children, don't," said Debbie Feldman, president and CEO of Dayton Children's Hospital. "Primary care really is the beginning of lifelong health. And so that is really where we hope to invest the money.”
Feldman said the hospital will also rename its main campus on Valley Street as the Dayton Children Golisano Comprehensive Care Campus in honor of his major donation.
"We remain Dayton Children's and we remain an independent children's hospital with the best interests of the children of this region at the center of everything we do," she said. "But we have been given an opportunity and an expectation to lead. Our goal is clear, to make the Dayton region the very healthiest place for a child to grow up, and to ensure that fewer children ever end up in health crisis."
Dayton Children’s is not the only hospital that Golisano is supporting. He has donated over $1 billion to multiple children's hospitals and other organizations across the country.
Through this series of philanthropic donations, he is building the Golisano Children’s Alliance, connecting Dayton Children’s to 15 other hospitals across the nation.
States with hospitals that are currently in this network include Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and more.
"We expect that number to grow. The Alliance will bring us together to share ideas, best practices, and innovations," said Todd Plieman, chair of the Board of Trustees at Dayton Children's Hospital. "One of our values is that we are better together, and we believe that is also true in working with other children hospitals."
'Preventing the preventable'
While Ohio has many of the nation's best children's hospitals, statistics show that health outcomes rank in the lower half, compared to other states.
Data from The Journal of the American Medical Association also shows that nationally, 60% of kids who die by suicide never got a mental health diagnosis or the care they may have needed.
"Too many children in our region enter the health care system too late, and it's because our system is designed to respond to crisis, not prevent it," said Pleiman. "And if we're going to meaningfully improve pediatric outcomes, that's the piece that needs to change."
With these issues in mind, Dayton Children's plans to invest Golisano's donation in preventative and primary care as well as continued research into best practices and strategies.
"With this investment, we will focus on making primary care the engine of lifelong health, not just the entry point. We will move toward fully integrating mental health to services closer to where our children live and learn," Feldman said.
Dayton Children’s plans to use the funding for preventative care but Pleiman said it will take years to implement these funds.
Dayton Children's associate chief medical officer of population health, Dr. Jonathan Thackeray, said that work will expand upon efforts already in place that respond to an expensive and underfunded health care system.
"We're offering more on demand care through Kids Express and are soon to open West Dayton Urgent Care," he said. "And we're working with health care partners to think about how we can be present more accessible on demand."
