Becker’s Healthcare Podcast Rebuilding Pediatric Heart Care and Expanding Access at Manning Family Children’s with Matt Timmons
Feb 19, 2026
Matt Timmons, Senior VP and COO at Manning Family Children’s who rebuilt key pediatric services, discusses restoring the Heart Center through culture change and targeted recruitment. He covers a campus master plan, a new 60-bed NICU, growth in cancer and sickle cell care, and scaling school-based Thrive Kids amid Medicaid funding uncertainty.
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Rebuilding A Critical Service Line
- Matt Timmons prioritized rebuilding the Heart Center after physician turnover and cultural decline by listening and executing a targeted action plan.
- The program regained physician recruitment, volume growth, and overwhelmingly positive team feedback within a year.
Diagnose Before You Act
- Conduct one-on-one meetings, rounding, focus groups and anonymous surveys to diagnose service-line problems.
- Convert feedback into a pragmatic task force and a detailed action plan, then execute relentlessly.
Campus Growth Requires Master Planning
- Manning Family Children's faces physical capacity limits despite a desirable campus location.
- A facility master plan will define capital investments needed to support growth over the next decade.