How pediatric health systems are rethinking where care happens

Key points:

• • Florida pediatric health institutions are expanding specialty care closer to where families live.
• • New investments in robotics, AI, and at-home care are transforming pediatric treatment across the state.
• • Nemours and Nicklaus Children’s aim to ensure families no longer need to leave Florida for complex care.

May 2026 — For years, a child and their family in Florida with epilepsy, a rare bone disorder, or a heart defect had little choice but to travel for adequate care. Sometimes hours away, sometimes out of state entirely. The distance between a diagnosis and the right specialist could mean weeks of disrupted work, school, and family life. Florida’s leading pediatric health institutions are now working to make that a thing of the past.

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“Rather than requiring patients to travel to a central hospital location, the goal is to extend subspecialty care into communities across the region,” Dr. Heather Fagan, pediatrician-in-chief at Nemours Children’s Health, told Invest: Greater Orlando.

Fueled by strategic partnerships, state investment, and a wave of new technology, institutions like Nemours Children’s Health and Nicklaus Children’s Health System are reshaping where and how complex pediatric care is delivered across the Sunshine state.

Bringing the hospital to the community

Children’s hospitals in Florida are working to follow families, not the other way around. Nemours Children’s Health has operationalized that idea aggressively. 

“Nemours Children’s Health has focused on meeting families where they live, work, and play,” said Fagan. “We just recently broke ground on a new multi-specialty care facility in Brevard County that will bring pediatric primary, urgent and specialty care such as hematology, cardiology, neurology and more to that area.”

In South Florida, Nicklaus Children’s has pursued the same goal through partnerships. Its collaboration with Broward Health now means families in Broward County can access world-class subspecialty care without having to make the commute into Miami. 

“Our partnership with Broward Health means kids in Broward County don’t have to travel all the way to Miami to access world-class pediatric subspecialty care,” Matthew Love, president and CEO of Nicklaus Children’s Health System, told Invest: Miami. “That improves convenience for families, supports continuity, and helps ensure children get timely access to specialists.”

Keeping the kids close to home

For families navigating cancer, rare neurological conditions, or complex orthopedic needs, travel adds a layer of inconvenience that’s hard to overcome. Nemours has made eliminating that burden a clinical priority. The institution recently joined a coalition that successfully secured $30 million in annual state funding over five years — $7.5 million per participating hospital — specifically to build out pediatric cancer services in Florida. 

“A child with cancer should never have to leave Florida for treatment,” said Martha McGill, president of Nemours Children’s Health’s Central Florida Region. “We are committed to ensuring that is no longer the reality for children and families.”

The hospital’s Division Chief of Hematology and Oncology, Dr. David Dickens, is building the infrastructure to back that promise. Dickens told Invest: Greater Orlando his immediate goal is establishing local cellular therapy and bone marrow transplant services — interventions that previously sent Florida families out of state. 

“Traveling to receive it or receiving it somewhere where you can’t be assured of the best possible outcome is incredibly challenging,” Dickens said. “I want that to be here.”

Technology as the engine of expansion

New technologies are making locally delivered, world-class care increasingly achievable. Nemours’ neurology program now uses the ROSA robot to place electrodes in the brain with pinpoint accuracy during epilepsy evaluations — capabilities that allow the program to handle cases that once required transfer. 

“Having this many physicians in the last two years has changed our neurosciences program into one of the largest neurosciences centers in Florida,” Dr. Satya Gedela, chief of neurology at Nemours Children’s Hospital, Florida, told Invest: Greater Orlando.

Advances in orthopedics — including AI-assisted outcome evaluation and bioabsorbable implants — are also raising the standard of what community-based pediatric care can accomplish, according to Dr. John Lovejoy, chair of orthopedics at Nemours Children’s Health.

The recently launched Advanced Care at Home program extends the Central Florida hospital’s reach even further, allowing patients who are medically ready to recover at home supported by remote monitoring and around-the-clock clinical access.

Nicklaus Children’s is betting on precision medicine to deliver faster, more individualized diagnoses.

While funding challenges and gaps in access persist across Florida’s pediatric landscape, the infrastructure is being built out and the direction made clear: bringing the care to the families closer to home.

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