Journeys of Hope Podcast - Episode Two

January 28, 2026

In the latest episode of Journeys of Hope, host Rebecca Solomon sits down with Dr. Nathaniel Beers, the new president and CEO of Blythedale Children's Hospital. This conversation takes us into the world of pediatric care, focusing on the challenges and triumphs faced by medically fragile children and their families. Dr. Beers shares his vision for the future of healthcare for this vulnerable population, emphasizing the importance of community support and innovation.

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Key Takeaways:
1. Dr. Nathaniel Beers emphasizes the importance of maintaining Blythedale's legacy while innovating for the future.
2. Early experiences and advocacy shaped his commitment to caring for medically fragile children.
3. The changing landscape of healthcare requires collaboration between various systems to ensure comprehensive care.
4. Advocacy for vulnerable populations is crucial in light of potential healthcare funding cuts.
5. Blythedale's unique culture fosters an environment where healthcare and education work together.

TRANSCRIPT

Rebecca Solomon (00:05)
Hello and welcome to Journeys of Hope, a podcast inspired by the strength, resilience, and unshakable spirit of medically fragile children. Each episode, we share powerful stories of young warriors who face extraordinary health challenges alongside their families, caregivers, and medical teams. Through unwavering love, expert care, and hope, these children show us what it means not just to survive, but to thrive.

My name is Rebecca Solomon and this is Journeys of Hope. Let's begin. Now on this episode, we are welcoming Dr. Nathaniel Beers, the new president and CEO of Blythedale Children's Hospital. Only the third leader in the Hospital's 66-year history, Dr. Beers steps into the role at a pivotal time for children's healthcare. Dr. Beers is a nationally recognized pediatrician and advocate for medically complex children. And he joins us to share his vision for Blythedale's future and the families it serves. Dr. Beers, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to Blythedale

Nathaniel Beers (01:09)
Thank you very much. I'm thrilled to be here and thanks for having me today.

Rebecca Solomon (01:13)
Absolutely, I'm really looking forward to our conversation. And as I mentioned, you really are only the third CEO in Blythedale's 66 year history. What does stepping into such a legacy mean to you personally?

Nathaniel Beers (01:27)
Yeah, I feel ⁓ one, incredibly privileged ⁓ to be able to sit in this seat and to hold this role, given the fact that, as you noted, I'm only the third person in 66 years to be here. And so it comes with a great degree of respect for the leaders who were here who built Blythedale into the nationally recognized leader that it is.

And it affords me the opportunity to think about how can we continue to maintain that legacy, but also think about what the future of healthcare looks like for this population of kids and how Blythedale can play a role in making sure that we are part of thinking about what does the future of healthcare look like for the population of medically complex children.

Rebecca Solomon (02:15)
Absolutely, and we're going to dive into that during this podcast a little bit more. But first, let's go back into time a little bit. Share with me about the moment you knew pediatrics and particularly caring for medically fragile children would be central to your career.

Nathaniel Beers (02:31)
Yeah, I'm right, one of those strange children who always knew they wanted to be a pediatrician, not even just a doctor, but a pediatrician, right? And it stems from the fact that I bit my dentist when I was about four years old. He thought my mouth should be opened wider than I thought it could. And from that point forward, I felt like I should be protecting other children. And again, I was young and didn't understand the difference between a dentist and a pediatrician. And for me, it was about being a doctor for kids and making sure that kids had people who cared about them and kids, people who were going to listen to them.

And so from that, I spent my Blythedale thinking about where were those spaces. I was fortunate to have the experience of working at a special education camp in high school and had the opportunity to realize that not only did kids need people who were going to speak up for them, but children with disabilities had an even greater need and needed people to make voices for them and to recognize them for what they were able to do, not what the disability that was holding them back.

And so for me, that created a shift for me and allowed me to start to realize that really my passion was working with kids with disabilities and for kids and families and making sure that that was part of my career. And so my career has been built around really thinking about how do we improve services for kids with disabilities and medical complexity across both the health and education sectors, as well as other social service sectors, and how can we decrease the administrative burden for patients and families? How can we improve the quality of services and access to those services? And how can we assure that we're addressing the inequities that exist in those spaces?

Rebecca Solomon (04:27)
interesting how you really felt that calling at such a young age and here you are kind of practicing what you've been preaching all these years. So it's really fascinating and really great to see. So we know your career spans medicine, education, public policy, community leadership. How have those experiences really shaped the leader you are today?

Nathaniel Beers (04:52)
Yeah, right. I went to medical school actually thinking that I was going to be a doctor, working in a clinic, taking care of patients all day long every day.sort of what I thought would happen and in medical school started getting involved in organized medicine ⁓ through the American Medical Students Association and realizing that one of the things that I was good at was the policy space and so to residency and did my fellowship thinking that that was a space I would hold right and think about sort of how could I not only see patients, but also make sure that I was thinking in the policy space about how we could improve quality and access across lots of different domains.

I realized that that was something that was unique that, again, not many physicians are trained in or have lots of skills in.

I was talking with the team at Blythedale yesterday, and I talked a little bit about the fact that my superpower is really being able to translate between different systems of care, right? Because we all use different language, and we all have different goals, except we all have the goal of improving the quality of Blythedale children.

And so how can we learn to translate between those systems to make sure that in fact children and families are getting what they need and that we're listening to children and families about what they need, what their needs are. And so my career has been sort of about sort of looking at and thinking about sort of where could I do work. And so after finishing my fellowship, I came back to Washington, D.C., where my family is and where I'm from, and had the opportunity to do work in that space.

Again working in the organized medicine space to start with with the American Academy of Pediatrics both on the local and national level to think about how we could help pediatricians and help children more broadly, but then ended up going and working in the DC government and had the opportunity to really on the ground think about policy changes, think about systems changes, think about how can we ⁓ really reduce the barriers that are getting in the way of children getting the things that they need. And so was able to do that within the DC Department of Health and then lead work at DC public schools for six years thinking about special education and how can we again interface between health and education but really change outcomes for kids in those spaces.

Rebecca Solomon (07:19)
And it's always everything that you've talked about, it's constantly changing too. So keeping up with that and what you were doing 10, 15, 20 years ago, it's evolving right now. And now here you are at Blythedale and really it's being described as a pivotal moment for children's healthcare. From your perspective, what makes this moment so critical?

Nathaniel Beers (07:43)
Well, health care is drastically changing. What we can do is just so different than even five years ago, right? The number of children who safely go home and be cared for in their communities is radically different over the course of my career, right? There are children who would have never left institutions and maybe never even survived and now are able to go home. And so a place like Blythedale that really is focused on how do we get kids home is a really important piece of the solution health care and needs to be a really important partner, right, for our quaternary care centers who are providing amazing care, right. If you have an emergency, you're going to go to one of the most incredible emergency rooms that you can get access to make sure your child can get the care they need. If they have an acute illness, right, and they need treatment for their cancer or they need, you know, to recover from a trauma or whatever the case is, those are really important hospitals in those quaternary care spaces who are changing outcomes for kids and keeping kids alive who've never survived in the past. But we're a piece of that puzzle because those kids need to get home and they don't get home as well if they don't come to someplace like Blythedale that really is that sort of connection between that quaternary care hospital and the big academic medical centers and home. Because we have the time to spend with patients and families to help them recover, but also to help them learn how to take care of their children at home.

And we can provide that connection to the community in making sure that the community supports are in place so that they are ready to go to school when they're ready to go to school. Or they're able to come back to us and come to our day hospital program if they need some continued support during the daytime and their home education system is not ready to receive them.

Big piece of what that looks like. So the health care landscape is changing, right, just with technology and capacity, and that's an important piece of what we're living through. The reality is health care funding is changing as well. So we know certainly here that HR1 passed last year and is going to have impact on what is available from a Medicaid perspective for hospitals like

Rebecca Solomon (10:07)
That's a good segue to talk about the potential cuts and what that could mean to our families here at Blythedale.

Well, first of all, let's just talk about the children at Blythedale. I know Blythedale serves a very small, but incredibly vulnerable population. We represent less than 1% of children nationwide. So, but thinking about that number, first tell us why it's so important that places like Blythedale exist.

Nathaniel Beers (10:32)
Yeah, so right, if you are talking about sort of a very small percentage of all children, right, as you noted, it's 1% of the overall population, but they are the most complex of the most complex, right? These are not kids who most general pediatricians have exposure to even in their careers, right, unless they took care of them during residency. They're kids, you know, who have lots of technology needs. They're on ventilators. have, you know, gastrostomy tubes that help them sort of get feedings. They need to be monitored on their blood sugar levels or their oxygen levels or other components to make sure that they're safe. They need specialized formulas or feedings. They are the kids who need the most intense resources in order to survive. We have children who are on ventilators and if their ventilator disconnects and they are not immediately reconnected, they're at risk of death, right? And so those are the kids that come to Blythedale and need the support and we do that, right? We support their child, we support the family, we provide the training and support so that they can get into the least restrictive environment that they can and hopefully home is that space for them.

Rebecca Solomon (11:52)
So going back to what you were talking about with Medicaid cuts, mean, there's major fear there around these looming cuts that would significantly impact these vulnerable patients and their families, with nearly 80% of our patients relying on Medicaid. as the leader of Blythedale, how do you balance fiscal sustainability with mission-driven care?

Nathaniel Beers (12:13)
Yeah, so as you note, right, there's certainly potential for significant Medicaid cuts. And so how do we sort of start to prepare for that reality? I think that it starts with understanding what is actually going to happen and making sure that we are communicating with legislators and regulators and understanding what's going to happen at the state budget level so that we understand what's going to happen to the children who we're caring for in this region.

It includes making sure that we're advocating for patients. so spending time in Albany and Washington, DC, making sure that those legislators really understand the impacts of decisions that they're making. While it may be easy to just make across the board Medicaid or Medicare cuts, the reality is that...our population is much more vulnerable than some other populations. And so making sure that we help those individuals who are making those decisions really truly understand that piece.

We as an organization also need to be willing to shift as well. And so we need to be willing and look and think about where there are opportunities for us to create cost savings within the care that we are providing without compromising the quality. And so my job as a leader is to continue to sort of have us think about why are we doing things the way we're doing, where there are opportunities for us to think about where automation may fit in or not fit in, where can we reduce administrative burdens that are getting in way of our care providers and therapists and physicians who are providing care, but if they had less administrative burden, might be able to do more in the clinical space. And then where do we think about sort of where we have opportunity with. working with the payer community, again, for them to really understand the value add, right? Sending a kid to me, right, who's then not going to bend up back in the emergency room because we spend more time with them and are able to get them home better, should justify the spend, right, than having them go straight home from, you know, an acute care hospital where they may not be able to have the same results that we have in our space. And then the final piece is raising money.

And so it's about getting out to the donor community and understanding, helping them understand that we're the hospital that no one wants to need, but we're the hospital that you wanna make sure that you have in the community, right? And so the stories that our team is able to tell, that you're telling through this process are about kids who everyone is moved by, right? And you hope that that's not your child but you surely want us there. And how can we help people understand that they need to support us with philanthropic dollars to make that possible so that we can continue to have the amazing outcomes and can continue to support the community for the eventuality that someone might need us.

Rebecca Solomon (15:14)
That's big role you play there. I mean, that's a lot, right? When you talk about the undertaking of just what we do inside the hospital halls and the units and the rooms, but it also is outreach and what goes on beyond the hospital. It's really fascinating, and that's a lot. What role can specialty children's hospitals like Blythe Dale play in shaping the broader policy conversations around Medicaid and pediatric care in general?

Nathaniel Beers (15:43)
Right, I think we have a really unique voice in this space, right? The specialty hospitals, as you note, right, like Blythedale, are really caring for the most medically complex children. And so making sure that we are coming together, that we're working collaboratively with our peers to really establish what the standards of care are, that we're doing the work together to ensure that in fact, competing with each other, but really are working in collaborative ways to make sure that children get what they need in the community that is closest to them.

Rebecca Solomon (16:21)
All right, so you started at Blythedale in November, and what is standing out to you most about Blythedale's culture, staff, or patients?

Nathaniel Beers (16:32)
Blythedale is just an amazing place, right? I've been here, I'm now in my eighth week of being here, coming up on two months and it has been an incredible experience of being in a place where the staff have amazing passion for the work that they're doing, amazing, incredible dedication to the individual patients, but the broader community as well. And so that makes it easy to come to work and lead a team.

There may be challenges, but you know everybody's heart is in the right place and they're trying to do the right thing each and every time for each and every patient. It is a place that is really unique in a lot of ways, right? In the things that it is trying to do, it is the only place in the country where there is a hospital and a special education school within that hospital. It is the reason I am here, right? Because I get to marry the two passions of my Blythedale, and sort of health care and education, and really think about how we be that front runner and leader in those spaces.

Rebecca Solomon (17:42)
When family, staff or community partners think about Blythe Dale five to 10 years from now, what do you hope they'll say has stayed the same and what will have evolved?

Nathaniel Beers (17:51)
I hope that we stay core to our sort of commitment to the patient and family first, right? And I think that that is a really important part of who we are, that patient-centered care and really meeting the individual patient where they are is a really important piece of how do we get to success in that space. I hope they also see that we continue to be a leader in making sure that we are driving the field forward to continue to think about how can kids get home and how can they be successful when they go home. And I think that that is a really important part of who we are.
I think my hope as well for the future is how can we touch more patients and families? How can we continue to think aboutserving a broader population, whether that's physically here in the hospital or thinking about where there may be opportunities for us to expand beyond this campus or into other regions of New York or our surrounding states, but also how can we make sure that patients in those spaces really have meaningful access to the incredible model of care and incredible commitment to care that we have here at Blythedale.

Rebecca Solomon (19:15)
You're succeeding Larry Levine, whose 26-year tenure transformed Blythedale. What have you learned from him during this entire transition?

Nathaniel Beers (19:23)
Yeah, Larry has been an incredible mentor to me during this process. He has taken an immense amount of time to help me understand the history of Blythedale. The decisions that have been made, but also helped me understand the legislative and advocacy landscape of New York and how he has been able to be really truly focused on the children and what their needs are ⁓ and been an incredible voice and advocate across this, you know, New York state, but also across the country in making sure that we don't forget.

The important population that is served here at Blythedale. And while they may be small, they have every bit the right to have the incredible care and access that they have. And we need to continue to sort of carry that forward as we take the reins from him and hopefully make him proud of what we're able to do going forward.

Rebecca Solomon (20:23)
Clearly you are ready and already building on that legacy, which is so wonderful. But how would you say you're gonna put your own stamp on leadership while honoring what came before?

Nathaniel Beers (20:33)
Yeah, I think that part of it is about building the team. I think there's an amazing team of leaders in this organization. I would really like to see.

Blythedale still live beyond any one person and really be out in the community recognized for the incredible resource that it is and that doesn't rely on me as the CEO, but really is about the people who are leading that work each and every day. And so a part of it is engaging with our community partners who we've worked with over the years and thinking about how can we obey a better partner? How can we be more collaborative in that space? And how can we ensure that Blythedale is a part of the solution, recognizing we can't do everything for everyone, but we can be part of that conversation as we move forward. And so I do think that community engagement and peace is important for us. I've spent a lot of my career doing work around patient and family engagement and really creating voices for patients and families. And so do see an opportunity here to think and continue that work about how can families who have children and patients who have very complex needs still be the decision makers and drivers around what their goals are and what their care model should look like and what ultimately they want to achieve for their child. so opportunities to continue to push the field in that space and push ourselves to continue to be leaders in that space. And so hopefully we can be able to do work in those spaces to really think about how does that happen? And then I think the last piece is in this continuum of care, the broken piece that exists across the country right now is home care. There's really inadequate home care services for everyone, but children are even worse off than the rest of the population. And far too often we cross our fingers and hope that there are family members who can care for the child when home care services are not available.

We need to continue to think and be an active partner in what does that solution look like. If we really truly believe that every child should be able to go home, we need to make sure that they have those services when they do get home. And so we need to continue to sit at the table and support our home care partners in that space. Think about innovative models of home care delivery that may allow more remote monitoring. Certainly with technology, we can do more and see more at home.

The adult care space has jumped into this with sort of hospital at home models. And in the pediatric space, we need to figure out what does that look like for us, and particularly for the medically complex child. What does that look like when they go home, and how can we make sure that they're safe and able to be home?

Rebecca Solomon (23:34)
That's great. And you know, just to give our listeners some context there, mean, Blythe Dale really has this unique program where we're able to get the parents at the hospital, giving them the tools and resources they need to help their child, not only when they're at the hospital, but then also when they're at home ⁓ as well, which is something so fascinating. We touch on that in a future podcast topic, but it really, we have that foundation here at Blythe Dale. But to your point, it really is just about continuing to build on that.

And that kind of is a good segway to my next question, which is really talking about innovation in pediatric specialty care right now. What excites you most about that? You mentioned some things about home care and how that could evolve, but tell us a little bit about kind of what excites you the most about that innovation.

Nathaniel Beers (24:26)
Yeah, I mean, think that the capacity to take care of kids and monitor their home is part of that innovation and part of that space. And I think, again, it is part of the value system that we hold around really wanting to get children discharged to home.

I think there's amazing innovation happening each and every day here at Blytheville as well, right? We have a team on our assistive technology team that is thinking about how can every child figure out a way to communicate no matter what their current capacity is, but how can we create a mechanism for them to express their needs and desires effectively and how can they be mobile and get around. Children should not be in a static space, right? Children are mobile beings and they should be getting around in the world and so thinking about sort of how do we take and learn from what we're able to do and make sure that that's accessible to other people in the world  and that we can do that in a safe and effective way is going to be a really important part of the work that we do here.

And then I think the models of care are going to continue to evolve and change. And so how do we continue to innovate and challenge ourselves to not just continue doing it the same way, but to continue to learn, to continue to think about where there are opportunities for us to partner with other institutions in the academic space, to continue to advance the field of pediatrics and think about sort of what our role is in that space creates opportunity for us to think about how we fill that role of being an innovator and being the forefront of caring for children with medical complexity.

Rebecca Solomon (26:14)
It really is an exciting time to be in this space, right? It seems like opportunities are endless, but it's just a matter of doing it the right way. And that's where you come in. So it is exciting. You talked a little bit earlier about the importance of having our community members and our donors and our partners helping us with our mission here at Blythedale. Tell us a little more just about how those community members and partners can best support our hospital's mission moving forward.

Nathaniel Beers (26:24)
Yeah, I mean, I think there's all different kinds of ways for our community members to support us, right? I think there are opportunities to make sure that our patients and families have adequate food, right? As you noted, over 80 % or around 80 % of our patients are on Medicaid. And their medical needs are but one part of the needs that they have. And certainly for a family who has a child in the hospital for 30, 60 days, the impact on them as a family is incredible. And so it is simple things like making sure that we have adequate food resources for them so that they can feed the rest of the family while they're here trying to make sure that their child gets their needs met or volunteering to spend time with a child whose family member is working multiple jobs and can't be with them all the time.

But it is also a dollar amount, right? And people come at different places and we appreciate every single thing that people can give to us. And certainly we have people who are giving us one dollar bills, but we also have people who are giving us six and seven figure gifts. And those are important in being able to make sure that that program is there today and tomorrow and into the future. It also affords us the opportunity to try things and fail and to be willing to be innovative requires us to fail sometimes and learn from those failures and continue to iterate and improve. But we need a community who's going to give us the space to be able to do that.

And we know, as I noted earlier, we also will find ourselves in situations like right now where government funding may not be as stable as it has been in the past. And so having the ability to bridge that gap and ensure that we don't have to reduce the quality of services or the array of services that we're able to provide our patients and families to ensure that we can get to those outcomes we want to get to and so certainly our community and donor community play a lot of different roles in those spaces but are a critical part to our success each and every day and each and every year.

Rebecca Solomon (29:05)
That's great. And if you are listening to this podcast and you do want to a helping hand, by all means, please contact us and we'll be happy to put you in touch with the right people who can get you started with reaching out and helping us out. We appreciate that. All Dr. Beers, on a more personal note, what keeps you grounded when the work feels challenging? Which we know this can be a challenging space.

Nathaniel Beers (29:31)
I mean, healthcare is hard, right? And I think one of the things that we don't do well in healthcare is take care of ourselves. But what I remind my staff all the time is you can only take care of other people if you are taking care of yourself and figuring out how you are ensuring that making space to connect with family and friends, making space to connect with the passions in your life and finding those things that keep you grounded and centered.

I am one of the rare human beings that bought a Peloton during the pandemic and still regularly use it. But it is one of my grounding pieces, right? It is about getting on the bike and exercising and making space for me to zone out and just listen to someone else tell me what to do for 30 plus minutes a day ⁓ and make sure that I have that space in my brain to allow myself some downtime in those spaces. But it's a routine, it's a community, creates connection for me since I've moved from DC to New York. It creates connections back to DC for me, for people who I know in that community in DC. And so for me, it's been a space of continuity and stability in this period of change. And it's created new opportunities, like being able to go to in-studio classes in New York City, right, and being able to do that. 

Rebecca Solomon (30:58)
You've been to one. That's great. Who is the instructor? wow. Okay. So that was a hard class.

Nathaniel Beers (31:04)
Yeah, it was a very hard class. I definitely put my put my 45 minutes in.

Rebecca Solomon (31:09)
That's great. Wow, 45 minutes. I haven't taken a 45 minute class since it's been a couple of years. But that's excellent. And do you have a favorite style of Peloton? Like, do you have a favorite class? Is it, I don't know, Hills or Tabata or Arms and...

Nathaniel Beers (31:26)
Yeah. I am one of the crazy people who takes the really long classes. So, on the weekends, I'm the person who's taking the 45 minute to 120 minute classes. Yep, so if you're looking for me on the weekends, you can probably find me at some point on there strapped in for at least 45 minutes.

Rebecca Solomon (31:41)
Good for you.
That's awesome.

All right. I'll have to follow you on Peloton. That's great. And then I guess in DC, you probably had some, would you do outdoor biking at all, trails? 

Nathaniel Beers (31:59)
Yes, I have my bike here. The weather is not perfect for outdoor biking right now and I am sort of figuring it out, but I've got my bike and we'll be going out certainly and getting around and biking. I love cooking as well. so cooking is sort of a decompression at the end of the day for me of, you know, making space to make a meal and just enjoy the opportunity to just relax and think about sort of the day, but also sort of create space to make a meal. So it's the thing my family is missing since they're still down in DC, because I was the cook. And so they're missing me cooking them dinner every day, but they'll be here soon and we'll get to enjoy the food again. And we'll all enjoy that sort of family opportunity to be together and to enjoy meals together.

Rebecca Solomon (32:37)
Good.

Does that mean you'll be stepping inside the Blythedale kitchen anytime soon and cooking a meal for all of your employees?

Nathaniel Beers (32:49)
I'm not sure I meet the qualification criteria to be allowed in the kitchen, but certainly happy to share recipes and think about things in cooking and certainly connect with people across the dinner table and across the sort of food conversation.

Rebecca Solomon (32:54)

Love it. That's great. What inspires you most about the children and families you serve?

Nathaniel Beers (33:18)
The perseverance is just amazing, right? I think, you know, we often can get caught up in sort of our own sort of cycle of self-pity about how hard our Blythedale is or how hard whatever we're doing is and how much energy it takes or what the burden we're carrying is. And you walk through Blythedale and you see the work that patients and their families are putting in each hour every day. And it reminds you of what really matters.

It's about connecting with people. It's about putting forward your best. It's about not giving up and making sure that you do build a community around you to pick you up when you fall down.

Rebecca Solomon (34:13)
And my last question for you is, you know, our podcast is called Journeys of Hope, and I'd like to ask you how you would describe the meaning of hope.

Nathaniel Beers (34:26)
For me, hope is really about thinking about what's possible and not getting caught up in what is in the way, but really ⁓ thinking about where could we be ⁓ and then let us figure out how to make that possible, right? And so for me, hearing about the title was exciting because I think it does embody who Blythedale is, right? We try and inspire hope in each and every one of our patients and families. And our job is to be their partner in allowing them to achieve wherever they're trying to get to.

Rebecca Solomon (35:04)
Thank you. And I think it's safe to say that our patients and families feel that hope and with you as our leader, we're all a little bit hopeful. So best of luck to you and thank you so much for joining us on this podcast. I appreciate it.

Nathaniel Beers (35:20)
Thank you for having me and thank you for making space for this. This is really important part of the work that we do.

Rebecca Solomon (35:25)
Absolutely.

And we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of Journeys of Hope. If you have ideas for future topics, we'd love to hear from you. Podcast at blythedale.org. And don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and like and follow us on social media. Thank you so much and we will see you next time.