$40 million donation from Tom Golisano will propel innovation toward making Dayton the healthiest place to grow up

Too many children only enter the health system in moments of crisis. Families face barriers in access to care, mental health needs go unmet until they escalate and care is often fragmented across settings. Even with world-class hospitals, outcomes for our children remain poor:

• Ohio routinely ranks in the bottom half of states on many child health measures, despite having some of the nation’s leading children’s hospitals*
• In our region, one in three children younger than 15 months don’t get their recommended well-child visits**
• Nationally, 60% of kids who die by suicide never got a mental health diagnosis, meaning they never got to the right care when they needed it.***

How do we help? How do we get kids the care they need when and where they need it? How do we partner with families to reduce the burden on them from an often-fragmented health care environment?

“Just like Desmond Tutu once said, we need to stop just pulling children out of the river,” says Debbie Feldman, president and CEO of Dayton Children’s. “We need to go upstream and find out why they are falling in.”

a life-changing investment

A $40 million gift from entrepreneur, philanthropist and civic leader Tom Golisano will help change that trajectory, and meet children and families where they are, laying a foundation for lifelong wellness. It will enable Dayton Children’s to move upstream to prevent the preventable, intervene before a crisis and ensure every child has the opportunity to thrive.

“Children deserve access to the right care before a problem becomes a crisis,” says Golisano. “Dayton Children’s has a clear vision for improving children’s health by reaching families earlier, integrating care and expanding access in the community. This investment supports that vision and helps create a stronger future for children and families across the region. I’m proud to partner with Dayton Children’s to accelerate this important work.”

Grounded in the hospital’s mission – the relentless pursuit of optimal health for every child within our reach – this investment accelerates Dayton Children’s vision of reinventing the path to children’s health with care centered on:

• Primary care as the engine of health: expanding access to pediatric primary care as the most effective way to improve long-term outcomes and intervene early
• Integrated mental and physical health: addressing the mental health crisis by embedding behavioral health into every aspect of care
• Care in communities and schools: bringing services closer to where children live, learn and grow to remove barriers and reach families sooner
• Accountability through outcomes: using data and shared learning to continuously improve, measure impact and scale what works

“This moment allows us to confront a system that too often rewards care delivered in crisis rather than care that prevents it,” says Feldman. “With this investment, we have the opportunity, and the responsibility, to get upstream, to intervene earlier and to redesign care in a way that supports the whole child. This is how we prevent the preventable and create healthier futures for children and families across our region.”

joining a learning network

As part of this transformation, Dayton Children’s will expand its ability to learn from and contribute to models of pediatric care across the country.

Through the Golisano Children’s Alliance — a national initiative that brings together children’s hospitals to expand services, strengthen collaboration and improve access to high-quality care close to home — Dayton Children’s will work alongside peer institutions to share insights, apply proven strategies and accelerate meaningful system-level change in pediatric health. As a member of the Alliance, Dayton Children’s will both benefit from and contribute to a growing national network committed to innovation, excellence and better outcomes for children and families.

honoring the investment

Dayton Children’s will honor this gift by naming the main campus on Valley Street as the Golisano Comprehensive Care Campus, a reflection of a shared commitment to changing the trajectory of children’s health for generations to come.

“This is about more than a name; it’s about what children and families will experience because of this investment,” says Jena Pado, vice president for Dayton Children’s Foundation and chief development officer. “When we meet families earlier, remove barriers to care and support the whole child, we change lives. That is the legacy this investment represents.”

*source – Ohio Children’s Hospital Association, Kids Count DataBook

**source – Medicaid data

***source – JAMA