Important facts about...

In 1892, Julia Foster Porter renovated a small cottage at the corener of Belden and Halsted streets to establish a hospital dedicated exclusively to caring for children. Read more.

Patient Care

• Licensed for 270 beds, we are Illinois' only freestanding hospital exclusively for kids.
• Among all hospitals in Chicago's seven-county metropolitan area, we rank #1 in volume for every pediatric medical and surgical specialty (IHA COMPdata 2006).
• We consistently care for the area's most critically ill children. Last year alone our transport team brought more than 1,300 children here from more than 100 different hospitals for care.
• With nearly 1,100 pediatric specialists in more than 70 specialties, we routinely provide more care to more young people than any other Chicago-area hospital.

Education

• We're growing. In 2012, we will open the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.
  For more than 60 years, we have served as the pediatric training ground for Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
• Our pediatric residency program is extremely competitive, with more than 1,000 applications for 31 positions in 2007.

Research

• Children's Memorial Research Center, the research arm of the hospital, is the only Illinois institution dedicated to pediatric research, and one of just a handful in the nation. Read more.
• In 2007, the center was awarded $28.5 million in external grants and contracts, of which 60 percent came from the federal government, including the National Institutes of Health.
• The center is also one of 13 multidisciplinary centers of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

Advocacy and Community

• Child advocacy is a core part of our mission. We focus on programs including prevention of violent and unintentional injuries, HIV/AIDS, chronic illnesses, parenting education, youth mentoring and access to care.
• Supporting our commitment to community, in fiscal year 2007, Children's Memorial Hospital invested more than $74 million in community benefit programs, including charity care.
• Another aspect of community benefit programs is unreimbursed costs of services for children on Medicaid, of which the hospital and its physicians provided nearly $61 million.

Accolades

• We consistently rank as one of the nation's best children's hospitals by U.S. News & World Report.
• As the first children's hospital in the country , and the first hospital in Illinois, to receive the prestigious American Nurses Credentialing Center's Magnet Award for Nursing Excellence, we're honored to be part of an elite group – less than 5% of U.S. hospitals have achieved and/or maintained this distinction to date. Read more.

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• Giving is crucial to advancing our mission. In fiscal year 2007, nearly 55,000 donors contributed charitable gifts to Children's Memorial, helping acquire new technology, expand programs and services, recruit leading specialists and foster groundbreaking research.  Read more.
• Volunteering provides mutually rewarding hospital and community support. Each year, more than 1,200 volunteers in 100 different assignments provide patients, their families and employees with 51,000 hours of service. Read more. 

Unless specifically noted, sources for statements above are based on internal data.

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