The story
History
In the late 1800s, parents of kids with medical needs traveled to Colorado hoping that the state's high elevation, low humidity and considerable sunshine would help serve as a cure. To accommodate that need, a group of volunteers established the Babies Summer Hospital in City Park in 1897. Early on, those volunteers saw a need for a permanent hospital that would "care for sick, injured and crippled children from birth to 16 years of age" and which would be supported mainly by volunteer contributions. With that goal to guide them, this same group of intrepid volunteers officially incorporated as The Children's Hospital on May 9, 1908.
In 1909, Children's Colorado converted a former residence at 2221 Downing Street in Denver into a "well equipped institution with a capacity of 30 beds," admitting its first patients on Feb. 17, 1910. As the demand for the hospital's services increased, it quickly outgrew its location at 22nd Avenue and Downing Street. The hospital raised more than $200,000 to build a new facility, which opened in 1917 at 19th Avenue and Downing Street in downtown Denver. The "beautiful, new, green and white" building opened with 100 beds and with what The Denver Post described at the time as "every article of equipment known to science."
After numerous expansions over the years at the hospital's downtown Denver location, Children's Hospital Colorado opened its new campus in Aurora on September 29, 2007. The 1,440,000 square feet (134,000 m2) hospital designed by ZGF Architects includes 284 beds and advanced medical equipment especially designed for children, as well as inspiring artwork and outstanding family accommodations.
On June 21, 2011, the hospital announced that its name was changing from The Children's Hospital to Children's Hospital Colorado. The hospital made the change to help differentiate it from other hospitals in the country with the same name.
One of the volunteers often credited with helping found the original Babies Summer Hospital was Dr. Minnie C.T. Love, who is a controversial and complicated figure in Colorado history. She graduated from Howard University College of Medicine and was elected to the Colorado House of Representatives in 1921, where she served as the chair of the Committee on Medical Affairs and Public Health. She lost her bid for re-election in 1922, but later joined the Colorado Chapter of the Women of the Ku Klux Klan and won her subsequent election campaign in 1924. In addition to being a member of the KKK, Dr. Love held racist views in the areas of eugenics. Children's Hospital Colorado has denounced Dr. Love for her views and chooses not to honor her in any capacity.
In March 2020, the hospital announced that it was expanding its age limit to all patients up to age 30 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic to help bring demand away from overcrowded adult hospitals. Although the hospital is treating patients under 30, it is not accepting patients with significant substance use or psychiatric disorders because those are outside of its areas of care. This is a small difference from the hospitals usual age limit of 25.
On the 2022-23 rankings, the hospital was ranked as the #7 best children's hospital in the United States by U.S. News & World Report on the publications' honor roll list.
In November 2020, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson collaborated with Microsoft and billionaire Bill Gates to donate Xbox Series X consoles to Children's Hospital Colorado along with 19 other children's hospitals throughout the country.
Read the full text
2022 facts and figures
Source:
Licensed Beds: 618
Total Surgeries: 26,242
Inpatient Admissions: 21,439
Average Length of Stay (in days): 6.6
Total Outpatient Visits: 627,665
Total Days of Inpatient Care: 140,942
Emergency and Urgent Care Visits: 212,286
Total Number of Employees: 8,437
Total Medical Staff: 2,678
Total Residents and Fellows: 307
Total Volunteers: 2,661
Value of Community Benefit Activities: $301.52 million
From Wikipedia’s article on Children's Hospital Colorado, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5