Born on the Run
Children’s Hospital of Orange County was born on the run, pushing to keep up with the explosive growth of this community. In the late 50s, when a small group of visionary pediatricians saw one quarter of a million children in Orange County and no regional medical facility dedicated to their specialized needs, they pledged to do something about it. This group created an executive council of community leaders dedicated to raise funds to build a children’s hospital.
By the Grace of St. Joseph
The Executive Council soon discovered key government funding would not be available unless the children’s hospital became part of a larger general hospital complex. Fortunately, the sisters of St. Joseph of Orange stepped in with a solution. They agreed to add an additional wing for children to their hospital and lease it back to the Children’s Hospital of Orange County. St. Joseph Hospital graciously gave CHOC the land to build this first 62-bed facility. Without their generosity and continued support, we would not have been able to create and run an independent community children’s hospital. In 1964, within weeks of opening our doors, we were running at capacity.
The End of an Era
From the beginning, CHOC and St. Joseph Hospital have operated as separate entities but our destinies have been inextricably linked in the sharing of certain core services. Today, over four decades later, CHOC Children’s still uses St. Joseph Hospital’s radiology, laboratory, surgical suites, and emergency department. While the sharing of services has sustained us thus far, this arrangement constrains our ability to create our own future. Premier children’s hospitals must control their own core services to attract top pediatric subspecialty doctors and pursue greatness.
In Pursuit of Our Destiny
Our continued transformation into a premier children’s hospital is happening because it has to happen. CHOC Children’s now serves a child population equal to or greater than those served by the elite children’s hospitals that are nationally recognized as the models of excellence in acute pediatric care. For years, we have stretched beyond the constraints of our infrastructure and resources to perform at the level of these top hospitals—in some cases even leading them. In the process, we have built an invaluable asset for our community. But we are now at a strategic inflection point. We must take the steps necessary to sustain our ability to provide care that is as good as the care at the top children’s hospitals—care we understand and know how to deliver—or we risk losing the tremendous momentum created over CHOC’s history. We have a moral responsibility to this community, to everyone who works at CHOC Children’s in the service of children, and to our colleagues in the national pediatric medical community to pursue the full potential of our destiny.
