Rady Children’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Orange County in Orange are merging. the merger of Rady Children’s Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Orange County, clearing the way for the pair to operate jointly under the name Rady Children’s Health, an organization that, pulling resources in San Diego and Orange counties together, would span a region home to more than 1.3 million children.
Many of those conditions nail down technical details, requiring continued pursuit of matters — such as hospital licensure and Medi-Cal participation — that both organizations could not reasonably change without significant turmoil.
Community benefits, which may include spending on a range of activities such as education, research and in-kind contributions to other charitable organizations, are a cornerstone of federal requirements for nonprofit health care organizations maintaining their tax-exempt statuses. The agreement’s softest requirements specify how many beds must continue to exist at each entity. That’s 52 in intensive care, 139 in the intensive care newborn nursery, 249 general acute care, and 67 in acute psychiatry and skilled nursing at Rady and 388 total at CHOC hospitals. Both organizations also run the neonatal intensive care units at affiliated hospitals, and those locations are also listed, complete with street addresses and existing bed capacities.
In a statement provided Thursday, Rady says that the conditions “are now under review by leadership and the Boards of Directors of both organizations.”