Cincinnati Children’s shares Community Impact Report that details how innovation is transforming child health

Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Cincinnati Children's has issued its fourth-annual Community Impact Report, which highlights how the nonprofit is the leader in improving child health through research and innovation.

The report notes that Cincinnati Children's is transforming pediatric healthcare by using artificial intelligence to address challenges ranging from early disease detection to disease progression tracking and personalized treatment planning.

For example, Cincinnati Children's is using AI to develop one of the largest repositories of clinical pediatric imaging data and associated clinical data such as laboratory results.

The health system's AI-powered imaging solutions improve diagnostic accuracy, support early interventions and help in developing personalized treatments:

• More than 40,000 pediatric hand radiographs have been used to develop modern AI systems to improve bone age assessments.
• An AI algorithm automatically identifies and locates lines, drains and airways in pediatric chest radiographs.
• Organ segmentation models have been automated in pediatric CT and MRI scans for body parts such as the liver, spleen, pancreas and heart, lungs and airways.

"Imaged-based AI has been leveraged across specialties to enhance decision-making and interpretation of pediatric histology, echocardiography and renal ultrasound," said Lauren Erdman, PhD, a computational researcher in the Department of Pediatrics and the James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence at Cincinnati Children's.

Steve Davis, MD, president and CEO of Cincinnati Children's, noted that the latest Community Impact Report, which focuses on the fiscal year from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, highlights the system's strong commitment to child health supported by excellence in clinical practice, research and training.

"The report summarizes how pediatric care and research are evolving and improving to meet patient and community needs, such as by integrating artificial intelligence to address pediatric chronic conditions and applying virtual reality to train medical providers in safety protocols," Davis said. "And our Bridge Clinic connects outpatients to mental health care while reducing emergency department visits."

The world-class clinical care provided by Cincinnati Children's is made possible by the health system's more than 19,600 team members, thousands of whom are engaged in medical research to develop treatments and cures that benefit kids here and around the globe, Davis added. The team includes more than 5,000 nurses and over 1,900 active medical staff.

The report notes that during Fiscal Year 2023, which ran from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, Cincinnati Children's employees delivered $587.8 million in community benefit services - including more than $341 million in charitable patient care and over $12.7 million in subsidized health services. That total included more than $15 million devoted to community outreach such as wellness initiatives and injury prevention. Another $143.7 million went to laboratory science and applied research, and over $75 million to the education of prospective physicians and other healthcare professionals.

One of the nation's largest providers of pediatric mental health services, Cincinnati Children's reported more than 227,000 visits, screenings, consultations and admissions related to mental health in Fiscal Year 2024. Every year at our College Hill campus, Cincinnati Children's cares for over 4,000 mental health inpatients, who range from 2 to 17 years old. College Hill also offers critical mental health outpatient services. Nationally, one in 10 children has a disability associated with or due to mental health issues, and about one in five children experience a mental health disorder in a given year.

Overall during FY24, Cincinnati Children's had more than 1.7 million patient encounters (admissions plus outpatient, Emergency Department and Urgent Care visits). That included:

• 1.5 million outpatient visits
• 169,000 ED and Urgent Care visits
• 103,000 telehealth visits
• 34,000 admissions

The report notes that Cincinnati Children's is a research powerhouse, applying the most advanced techniques to discover new ways to prevent and treat pediatric diseases. That was aided, in part, by $17.5 million in philanthropic support for research during Fiscal Year 2024.

To view the FY 2024 Community Impact Report, visit the Community Benefit page.

Cincinnati Children's also recently released its Community Health Needs Assessment for 2025.