“CHOC is now responsible for the lives of more children than the entire child population in any one of 39 states—two million kids. Market and mission demands are pushing us to grow and pulling us toward our destiny—to perform in the ranks of our nation’s premiere children’s hospitals. There’s no room for ambiguity about where we are and where we must go.”
Kimberly C. Cripe, President and Chief Executive Officer, CHOC Children’s
CHOC Market: Critical Mass Pushes Critical Growth
CHOC Children’s is the hub of a regional pediatric health care system serving the needs of two million kids across four counties—more children than the entire pediatric population in any one of 39 states. We are the referral center relied upon by hundreds of doctors from more than 90 hospitals across Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles Counties. Every year, these doctors send thousands of infants, children, and young adults to CHOC for premier diagnostic and specialty-care services addressing serious acute illness or severe chronic conditions.
Greatness requires scale
In the world of children’s hospitals, achieving and sustaining greatness requires scale. The CHOC market footprint and patient flow enables us to field a team of elite subspecialty doctors organized in Centers of Excellence—heart, cancer, neuroscience, and orthopaedics—and charged with continually improving a system of family-centered care. Through research and clinical trials, supported by advanced medical and information technology, this high performance team functions on the leading edge of pediatric medicine. Our doctors make breakthroughs that not only improve the prognoses for their patients but also enhance outcomes for pediatric patients nationally and internationally. The more advanced medicine we practice, the more patients we attract—a cycle of continually increasing benefits and returns that drives both growth and further innovation.
Since 1998, CHOC’s inpatient admissions have grown 95%, and specialty care clinic visits have risen 145%. Between our inpatient, outpatient, specialty, and primary care clinics, we serve more than 205,000 children a year. Our pediatric transport team is the second busiest in the United States, managing in excess of 4,000 inbound CHOC ambulance and helicopter transports a year. We are the 16th busiest children’s hospital in the nation and, overall, one of the 25 largest children’s hospitals in the country.
Hypergrowth continues
The more innovative practices and capabilities CHOC Children’s builds, the more our colleagues at adult hospitals become aware of the inherent gaps in their own service offerings to children. With the best interests of their
young patients in mind, adult hospitals around us are slowly closing their children’s units and referring their young patients to us. Moreover, these hospitals, which often have robust maternity programs, are inviting CHOC Children’s doctors to step in and manage their neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), where at-risk newborns are rushed immediately after delivery. Our doctors now manage half of all NICU beds in Orange County, including those at CHOC Children’s at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo and Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach.
Skip to Chapter 4 of the CHOC Story, “Do Something About it.” 