Member Spotlight: Nationwide Children’s Hospital

The Columbus Chamber is a valuable partner for the hospital, specifically for our advocacy and fundraising initiatives. They are generous with their expertise, help to open doors, make connections, and provide opportunities for us to grow our involvement with local businesses through our events and corporate social responsibility platform. In addition, they have become advocates for our families, especially with the On Our SleevesTM movement to transform children’s mental health here in Columbus.

How do you stay engaged with trends that you see in your industry?

Nationwide Children’s is active in a number of national and international medical organizations. At the institutional level, we are a driving force for the Children’s Hospital Association, among others. At the specialty level, our clinicians and researchers hold leadership positions in key industry organizations. For example, the director of our genomics department was named the president of the American Association for Cancer Research, a consortium of more than 40,000 scientists and clinicians. Additionally, on February 29, 2020 we opened the doors to the Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion, the nation’s most comprehensive center dedicated exclusively to pediatric behavioral health.

What is your company culture like?

The Nationwide Children’s culture is very important, all focused around providing the very best outcomes possible for children and families. Our values are to do the right thing; to create a safe day every day; to promote health and well-being; to be agile and innovative; and to get results. We all believe that we have a role to play in helping families, even if we are not directly involved in patient care. For example, employees don’t just tell a confused family where they need to go. Instead, the employee actually accompanies the family. No one is going to get in trouble for being late to a meeting if they were escorting a mom and her son to radiology. All 13,000 employees are empowered to make a difference for our patients.

What does it take to be a successful employee at your company?

Successful employees at Nationwide Children’s demonstrate all the values discussed earlier. Additionally, they have a great amount of empathy. We are different than many businesses. Unlike a restaurant or a retail store, no family wants to go to the hospital. Successful employees recognize that the hospital can be a stressful place for patients and families and they do everything they can to make the visit as pleasant as possible.

What makes Columbus such a great place to do business?

The people in our community is what makes Columbus such an incredible place to do business. From a philanthropic standpoint, we have watched Columbus businesses rally behind the well-being of the children in our community to help Nationwide Children’s provide best outcomes for them, regardless of their ability to pay. Most notably, over the past five years, we have worked with the Columbus corporate and individual community to take up the call to transform children’s mental health. We watched Big Lots make a bold choice to make a transformational $50 million gift for the Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion. And we watched as that one brave act inspired more, and more and more until an entire community was determined to break the stigma surrounding mental health and invest in the care, education and research our kids desperately need. We are so grateful to do business in a community that is willing to do something so bold; not because it was an easy thing to do or even because it was good for their bottom line; but because it was the right thing to do for the children in their community.

Social Media:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nationwidekids
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NationwideChildrensHospital/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/nationwide-childrens-hospital
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nationwidekids/
Website: https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/