Texas Children’s Hospital Uses Urgent Care ‘Brand’ to Expand Its Reach

Texas Children’s Hospital may not have an actual hospital in Austin, TX, but they’ll have a presence by virtue of plans to open pediatric urgent care centers and other facilities there over the next 3 years. Those centers, along with primary care practices, pediatric specialty clinics, and maternal-fetal medical practices, will be standalone locations that are not connected to any physical hospital in the vicinity. In effect, Texas Children’s will be using urgent care and its other outpatient services to open up a new market, highlighting the value they have to a healthcare system’s identity and business plans. In fact, one of the planned pediatric urgent care centers will be the first step. While the hospital says it has no plans to build an actual hospital in Austin, management is open to the idea, depending on how the new outpatients facilities fare.