City: Phoenix, AZ

Category: Health Care

Telephone: (602) 546-1000

Address: 1919 E. Thomas Rd.

Description: The concept of a children’s hospital had languished for about a decade when, in 1978, the Maricopa County Pediatric Society began considering ways to make the concept a reality. In 1980 a group of community leaders joined the pediatric doctors to form the nonprofit Phoenix Children’s Hospital Inc. The founders decided that Phoenix Children’s Hospital would best accomplish its mission in conjunction with an existing hospital, and hospitals throughout the Valley were invited to submit proposals. A blue-ribbon committee accepted a proposal from Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center (now called Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center). Phoenix Children’s Hospital opened in 1983 in space leased from Good Samaritan. There were no construction or equipment costs incurred. Instead, Good Samaritan transferred its pediatric services and beds to Phoenix Children’s Hospital through the lease arrangement.Recently the hospital outgrew its facility at Banner Good Samaritan, and in 2002 Phoenix Children’s Hospital moved into its current 20-acre campus, at which a $538 million state-of-the-art hospital was completed in 2011. The hospital is the largest freestanding children’s hospital in the US and the only licensed pediatric hospital in Arizona. It also runs 3 outpatient specialty care centers, in Glendale, Mesa, and Scottsdale. The hospital has expanded to more than 600 beds, playrooms, schoolrooms, and family sleep areas in patient rooms and throughout the hospital. Services include pediatric critical care; the state’s only 24-hour, 7-day-a-week pediatric emergency department; neonatal intensive care; a blood and marrow transplant unit; a kids’ kidney center; a children’s cancer center; a cystic fibrosis center; a neurosciences center for neurology and neurosurgery; a children’s heart center; a hemophilia center; and endocrinology, gastroenterology, pulmonology, and rehabilitation services.