Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center
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Cincinnati Childrens Hospital Medical Center will be the leader in improving child health.
Cincinnati Children’s will improve child health and transform delivery of care through fully integrated, globally recognized research, education and innovation.
For patients from our community, the nation and the world, the care we provide today and in the future will achieve the best:
- Medical and quality-of-life outcomes
- Patient and family experience
- Value
We’ve Been Changing Outcomes for Children for More Than a Century
Cincinnati Children’s began providing specialized care for children 135 years ago. In that time, we’ve grown from a small children’s hospital to a large, multisite medical center that cares for children from across the globe. Learn more about our history and our discoveries and breakthroughs that have changed the way the world’s medical providers care for children.
An Episcopal Touch
In 1883, a hospital was a scary place, and conditions were especially bad for children. Cincinnati residents Mrs. Robert Dayton, Isabelle Hopkins and Mary Emery wanted to change that situation. They won support from their bishop to open a hospital for children as a project of the Episcopal diocese. The Hospital of the Protestant Episcopal Church (later to become the Children’s Hospital, and today Cincinnati Children’s) was incorporated in November 1883 and opened a few months later in a rented three-bedroom house in Walnut Hills. A few years later, Thomas and J. Josiah Emery purchased land in Mount Auburn and built a new hospital, which opened in November 1887.
An Episcopal Touch
In 1883, a hospital was a scary place, and conditions were especially bad for children. Cincinnati residents Mrs. Robert Dayton, Isabelle Hopkins and Mary Emery wanted to change that situation. They won support from their bishop to open a hospital for children as a project of the Episcopal diocese. The Hospital of the Protestant Episcopal Church (later to become the Children’s Hospital, and today Cincinnati Children’s) was incorporated in November 1883 and opened a few months later in a rented three-bedroom house in Walnut Hills. A few years later, Thomas and J. Josiah Emery purchased land in Mount Auburn and built a new hospital, which opened in November 1887.
An Expanding Mission
In 1926, the hospital moved to a new, 200-bed facility near the College of Medicine, and established a formal affiliation as the Department of Pediatrics. The chairman of pediatrics, A. Graeme Mitchell, MD, envisioned a research mission, as well. He wrote to the hospital’s board: “Unless the hospital is interested in the prevention as well as the cure of disease … we have all of us failed to function to the fullest extent.” In response, board president William Cooper Procter donated $2.5 million to build and endow the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation, which opened in 1931.