Children’s Health Network acquired by MEDNAX

MEDNAX, Inc. (NYSE: MD) has completed the acquisition of Children’s Health Network (CHN), a physician group practice that provides a variety of inpatient pediatric physician services at 11 hospitals in four states.

CHN was started in 1996 as a pediatric critical care practice providing services at a Las Vegas, Nevada, hospital. Today, physicians practicing as part of CHN provide patient care at neonatal and pediatric intensive care units, pediatric emergency departments and through pediatric hospitalist programs at hospitals in California, Nevada, Montana and Louisiana.

“We’ve grown beyond a traditional physician group because we consider several stakeholders as part of our vision of care, from our hospital partners to other clinical professionals involved with caring for our patients,” said James Swift, M.D., who founded CHN and will continue to lead the group as part of MEDNAX’s Pediatrix operating division. “Pediatrix has a similar vision, and we look forward to the opportunities that will come from collaborating as part of a much larger network to gather outcomes data and to improve patient quality within our pediatric subspecialties.”

CHN physicians staff two neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in Las Vegas, Nevada, and one in southern California that have combined annual patient volume of approximately 25,000 patient days. The 12 neonatologists will practice as part of Pediatrix’s national physician group practice, which now consists of more than 850 neonatologists

In addition, CHN includes 28 pediatric critical care physicians who staff the pediatric intensive care units (PICUs) at eight hospitals, and 24 pediatric hospitalists in 10 hospitals in California, Nevada, Montana and Louisiana. As a result of this transaction, Pediatrix now has more than 80 pediatric hospitalists and more than 65 pediatric critical care physicians who practice as part of its national group practice.

CHN also has 17 pediatric emergency medicine specialists who staff one hospital in Las Vegas and one in Lafayette, Louisiana. Pediatric emergency medicine is a new clinical service for Pediatrix.

At most of the 11 hospitals at which the group practices, CHN manages multiple pediatric specialty services.

Dr. Swift is co-editor of “Pediatric Hospital Medicine: Textbook of Inpatient Management,” which, when it was published in 2007 was the first textbook for pediatricians practicing in in-patient settings.

MEDNAX acquired CHN for cash, and the transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to its earnings. No additional terms of the transaction were disclosed.

With the acquisition of CHN, MEDNAX has completed eight physician group practice acquisitions during 2009.