Nemours opens a new pediatric specialty clinic in Broomall

Nemours Children’s Health has opened a specialized pediatric medicine office in Broomall that includes doctors who focus on allergy treatment, cardiology, kidney ailments and other specialties.

The Delaware-founded pediatric health system operates hospitals and clinics in Delaware, Florida, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. At the Broomall clinic, Nemours officials said they wanted to make the system’s outpatient care more convenient for new and returning patients.

“We’ve had a long history of presence in the suburban areas, and Broomall represents an expansion of our capabilities to care for children and to improve access for families,” said Udayan K. Shah, the system’s chief of pediatric otolaryngology, or ear, nose, and throat care, in the Delaware Valley.

Officials at the system said they hope locating doctors with expertise in 14 medical and surgical specialties at the Broomall location will help children dealing with more serious medical issues.

“Families that come to our hospital for a complex surgery can have follow-up orthopedic care, therapy, imaging in their community,” said Pauline Corso, the system’s senior vice president and chief operating officer in the Delaware Valley. “Having that all in one place, so that we’re able to leverage that expertise together, just makes it more efficient and convenient for families.”

The 20,000-square-foot facility has been open for 12 days and served 1,300 patients so far. Nemours has about 83,000 patients in southeastern Pennsylvania, Corso said. The system also plans to open a similar specialty care facility in Malvern next year.

Primary care for children — and specialized health care for kids with chronic illness — is critical coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many adults and children forwent regular doctor’s visits. (Nemours still does appointments via telehealth for patients who need it: “It’s important to offer options for families so that they can do both actual and virtual visits,” Shah said.)

“We’ve seen an increase in patient volume at specialty clinics, as many other children’s hospitals have,” Corso said. “Some of that is delay in diagnosis or delay in managing chronic disease that unfortunately have gotten worse. It’s about getting kids back into the routine of preventative care, and maintaining chronic conditions so they don’t escalate.”

Last year, Main Line Heath ended its 25-year affiliation with Nemours for pediatric services, switching to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. CHOP opened a small, 52-bed hospital in King of Prussia in January 2022.

Nemours, however, is not leaving Southeastern Pennsylvania. It remains affiliated with Thomas Jefferson University. In addition to opening the specialty clinic in Broomall, Nemours acquired Madeleine C. Weiser MD & Associates, a primary care practice in Ardmore, effective Jan. 1, 2023.

Staff writer Harold Brubaker contributed to this article.