Lurie Children's Hospital
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago is a nationally ranked pediatric acute care teaching hospital located in Chicago, Illinois. The hospital has 360 beds and is affiliated with the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The hospital provides comprehensive pediatric specialties and subspecialties to infants, children, teens, and young adults aged 0–21 throughout Illinois and surrounding regions. Lurie Children's also sometimes treats adults that require pediatric care. Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago also features a state designated Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center, 1 of 4 in the state. The hospital has affiliations with the nearby Northwestern Memorial Hospital and adjacent to Prentice Women's Hospital. Lurie is located in the university's Streeterville campus with more than 1,665 physicians on its medical staff and 4,000 employees.
Lurie Children’s offers 70 pediatric subspecialties and has locations across the Chicago area. Physicians and staff provided highly specialized care for more than 212,000 children in 2018, from 48 states and 49 countries.
In the 2019-2020 U.S.News & World Report rankings of the Best Children's Hospitals, Lurie Children's continues to be the top hospital in Illinois, ranking in all 10 specialties.
History
Founded in 1882 as the Maurice Porter Memorial Hospital, nurse and mother Julia Foster Porter established a 8-bed cottage at the corner of Chicago’s Halsted and Belden streets after the death of her 13-year-old son. It was the first hospital in Chicago focused solely on the care of children and pediatrics.The hospital expanded, was renamed Children’s Memorial Hospital in 1904, and moved to the corner of Fullerton and Lincoln avenues. It remained in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood for 130 years.
In the 1940s, the hospital established one of the earliest pediatric surgery programs in the nation. Surgeons Willis J. Potts and Sidney Smith invented a number of surgical tools used to operate on blood vessels and they devised a new surgery to treat blue baby syndrome.
The main hospital was built in the 1960s and located in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on the north side of the city.
In 2008, the hospital administration and CEO were victims of extortion by then-governor Rod Blagojevich for $8 million of state funding in exchange for a $25,000 fundraiser.
On June 9, 2012, the hospital moved to its current location, 225 East Chicago Avenue, and changed its name to Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
The new name recognized philanthropist Ann Lurie, and her late husband, in honor of the $100 million gift she made in 2007 to help create the new hospital and to enhance its pediatric research initiatives. More than just a donation, Ann Lurie secured funding from other philanthropists and gave tours of the hospital. She also served on the board of the hospital. The donation was the largest that the hospital had ever received. The staff moved 170 patients and their parents, traveling by ambulance and escorted by the Chicago Police Department and Chicago Fire Department. The move was designed to allow the hospital to be closer to its academic partner Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, attract and retain the best staff, foster stronger, collaboration with adult researchers and clinicians, improve transition of patients into adult care, and provide even faster transport for critically ill newborns from Prentice Women’s Hospital.
The new 1.25 million square foot building cost $605 million and was completed in June 2012. The building featured 23 floors and was envisioned by ZGF Architects, Solomon Cordwell Buenz, and Anderson Mikos Architects. Structural engineering services for the new building was provided by Magnusson Klemencic Associates. Construction of the building was managed by a joint venture of Mortenson Construction and Power Construction.
The unique design of the hospital included many firsts in hospital design that included the emergency room being on the second floor. The hospital included almost double the space of the previous hospital and include much needed amenities including outdoor spaces for patients and families, playrooms, and private patient rooms. Design of the hospital has been industry praised and featured in many prominent publications.
The new hospital also includes multiple terraces with plants and trees to help calm patients and families with a new helipad on top for transport of critically ill pediatric patients.
In October 2014, the hospital inaugurated its first annual Hope and Courage awards, recognizing "leaders who have demonstrated exceptional commitments to improving the health and well-being of children". The 2014 honorees were Jamarielle Ransom-Marks, who runs the Jam's Blood and Bone Marrow Drive, child product safety advocates Linda E. Ginzel and Boaz Keysar, and Senator Richard J. Durbin.
Education
As the primary pediatric teaching hospital of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, the hospital offers a pediatrics residency program. The Feinberg School is ranked 17th for research and 17th for primary care in the 2016-17 rankings of top research-oriented medical schools in the country.Awards and rankings
- In the U.S News & World Report's 2011 edition of "America’s Best Children’s Hospitals" calls out ten clinical programs, with Urology ranking sixth nationally.
- Ranked #6 among only 11 children’s hospitals nationwide to qualify for the Honor Roll in the 2016-17 rankings.
- As the first free-standing children's hospital in the country and the first hospital in Illinois, the hospital was granted in 2001 the first of its four Magnet designations which it received again in 2005, 2010 and 2015. Less than one percent of all hospitals have achieved this accomplishment of redesignation three or more times.
- The hospital is one of only 10 children's hospitals nationwide, and the only one in Illinois, to be named a "Top Hospital" for patient safety by The Leapfrog Group, a national consortium of healthcare payers that promotes "leaps" in patient safety.
- The Joint Commission, the leading accreditor of healthcare organizations in America, named the hospital as one of three of the nation’s top performers on key quality measures. Children’s hospitals were ranked in one area – children’s asthma.
- The hospital was recognized as a "great place to work" by Becker's Hospital Review.
- In July 2016, the hospital became the first children's hospital in Illinois to be designated as a level 1 pediatric surgery center by the American College of Surgeons. The hospital is 1 of 24 nationwide that have received this designation.
| Specialty | Rank | Score |
| Neonatology | #8 | 91.3 |
| Pediatric Cancer | #14 | 83.4 |
| Pediatric Cardiology & Heart Surgery | #8 | 86.8 |
| Pediatric Diabetes & Endocrinology | #32 | 69.2 |
| Pediatric Gastroenterology & GI Surgery | #14 | 85.7 |
| Pediatric Nephrology | #12 | 82.9 |
| Pediatric Neurology & Neurosurgery | #11 | 86.5 |
| Pediatric Orthopedics | #35 | 69.9 |
| Pediatric Pulmonology & Lung Surgery | #21 | 78.4 |
| Pediatric Urology | #7 | 84.5 |