As a result of trends including expanded geographic reach, county population growth, increased demand for services, a critical shortage of specialists, and the need to continuously improve infrastructure, CHOC Children’s hovers at the edge of its capacity.
CHOC Market: Critical Mass Pushes Critical Growth
A tipping point
The increased demand for the unique knowledge and experience of CHOC Children’s doctors is heartening because it is a sign that our community is beginning to understand the key role that only a children’s hospital can play in a maturing urban community. It also means that more children are receiving optimum care. But increased demand also exacerbates the critical national shortage of pediatric subspecialty doctors.
As a result of trends including expanded geographic reach, county population growth, increased demand for services, a critical shortage of specialists, and the need to continuously improve infrastructure, CHOC Children’s hovers at the edge of its capacity. We are running out of beds in a facility where wait-listing or turning away newborns, children, or an adolescent in critical need is not an option.
Life in a vortex of sick kids
Every day, in Orange County alone, 121 children are born— 44,000 babies per year, which equals the population of a small city.5 Ten percent of these newborns are rushed to a neonatal intensive care unit for life-sustaining care.6 For their families, the celebration of birth instantly becomes the desperate hope that a medical team will be able to make their baby whole and preserve the potential of his or her life.
These are the intense emotional and professional demands that our doctors, nurses, technicians, administrators, and staff must face every day at CHOC Children’s. Under this kind of pressure, they cannot work effectively without a true calling, nor sustain their efforts without the support of a vital community.
5. CA Department of Health Services: estimated annual and daily births per county as of 2006— Orange County = 44,098 (121 per day) | Riverside County = 33,659 (92 per day) |San Bernardino County = 34,675 (95 per day) | Los Angeles County = 151, 261 (414 per day).
6. Estimate 9-12% of births require a NICU admission (Pediatrix, the nation’s largest for-profit NICU provider, estimates the figure at 12%).
7. Bed count as of Spring 2009.
Skip to Chapter 4 of the CHOC Story, “Do Something About it.” 
