The Promise of Value-based Care: A Conversation with Dr. Gavin Baumgardner of Partners For Kids

In the field of pediatric value-based care, Partners For Kids stands alone. It is the oldest and largest pediatric accountable care organization in the United States, created by Nationwide Children’s Hospital before the phrase “accountable care organization” had even been coined.

The organization now spans 47 of Ohio’s 88 counties – in partnership with Nationwide Children’s, Dayton Children’s Hospital and thousands of health providers – and is responsible for the health of 470,000 children who are covered by Medicaid managed care plans. Its model helps improve the health of those children and save money for the overall health system.

Gavin Baumgardner, DO, became Partners For Kids chief medical officer in 2025. He believes that the organization, and the concept of health care it represents, can help show others how to improve health care as a whole.

Dr. Baumgardner recently answered some questions for The Collaboratory:

Why does value-based care or an accountable care organization make sense?

That’s an interesting way of putting it, because the health care system in the United States traditionally has not made a lot of sense. The traditional fee-for-service health care finance system has a tendency to emphasize reimbursement for sick care and does not do enough to incentivize preventive services and wellness. 

That’s not a system designed to maximize people’s health. Value-based care, at its best, does maximize health. Providers get incentives for helping people stay healthy. When people have conditions that require ongoing care, like asthma or diabetes, they get the highest quality care so they aren’t in crisis and don’t find themselves in an emergency department. Then those patients can stay in school or continue to go to work. Ideally, their lives become better.

An accountable care organization creates a model that incentivizes prevention and wellness. Partners For Kids has taken this model a step further by adding care coordination and many other initiatives to break down barriers to better health.

What are the challenges that accountable care organizations face now?

There are two big challenges that always exist. One, it’s hard to change the way an entire industry operates – from “sick care” to true “health care.” It’s slow, it doesn’t always make sense to everyone, and sometimes you have to invest now in something that won’t pay off for years or even decades.

Then, funding is always a challenge. In the case of Partners For Kids, any change to the way Medicaid is funded at the federal or state level means we have to change. When Medicaid funding is more stable, and there’s not a threat of a reduction, it allows us to spend more energy on actually improving children’s health.

Even more important is that a reduction in funding makes it more difficult for community providers, who are so vital particularly in underserved and rural areas, to stay afloat. It’s hard to keep people healthy if there are no health care providers in their communities.

Why did you make the decision to join Partners For Kids?

I was in adult health care for 25 years, most often in an acute care setting or in hospital leadership. Because of that, I started to understand that the system could do so much more in terms of preventive care and in spending money the right way – that would do the most good for the most people.

I also really wanted three things for the rest of my career: to be with an organization whose mission I could fully embrace; to work with a great team who also embraced the mission; and then to do something that was clearly having a positive impact on kids and families. Nationwide Children’s as a hospital, and Partners For Kids as an accountable care organization, really marry all three of those, and they are leaders in value-based care and population health.

What makes Partners For Kids different from other ACOs that you have seen?

Value-based care can be so many things. Most hospitals or providers can implement a few value-based care ideas, like quality improvement initiatives and shared savings programs. But almost no one has the scope or the ability to have an impact like Partners For Kids. Yes, we cover a large geography and population – 47 counties, 470,000 children, more than 2,000 member providers – and that’s part of it.

Partners For Kids, though, also wants to do everything it can in an integrated way. Take a single child with a complex condition. Partners For Kids can have a care navigator work with a family to ensure every medical appointment is scheduled in a way that is easiest for the family; we can mentor the family on how to get the most from those appointments; through claims data, we can understand how often the family is filling or refilling prescriptions; we can work with a provider to improve medication adherence. This goes on and on, so that we are trying to improve a child’s health from every angle. At school, at home, in the community, and in a clinic.

And we don’t just do that with one child – the goal is to do it across entire populations.

What are you most looking forward to seeing from Partners For Kids in the future?

I think that we’ll continue to grow, both in the number of children whose health we are responsible for and in the kinds of services we can provide to their families. I think we’ll be able to do more for providers as well, helping them give the highest quality care to families.

I am also looking forward to telling more people about Partners For Kids. We are in a unique position as the oldest and largest pediatric accountable care organization. We can show what value-based care is at its best. . .it creates healthier people who can achieve more. In Partners For Kids’ case, it also provides savings that can be invested in other health-supporting initiatives.

I want people to understand that this model works. I think it’s our duty to help carry that message, so as many people as possible can benefit from the concept of value-based care.

Published November 2025