Children's Health System has a rich history of caring for Alabama's youngsters.

Since 1911 Children's has provided quality, comprehensive health care to Alabama's pediatric population and excludes no child in that effort. Situated in the heart of Birmingham's southside, it also serves as the primary teaching facility for UAB's Department of Pediatrics and boasts a medical research division that is second to none.

Over the last century Children's Hospital has grown from a community hospital into a comprehensive children's health care system that includes primary care physicians, specialists, parents, educators and child advocates.

Children's Hospital is a licensed 275-bed facility that cares for medical and surgical cases for newborn through 19 years of age. The 13 on-site outpatient clinics handle follow-up visits for these patients as well as referrals from health departments across the state. Last year CHS saw 12,000 inpatients, 608,000 outpatient visits, and nearly 50,000 visits to the level-one Emergency Department. A multidisciplinary approach is utilized throughout, where all the needs of the child are met - medical, physical, psychological, social - and spiritual, when desired.

Mobile intensive care units are used by the Critical Care Transport Team to transport children to and from hospitals and communities across Alabama. Outpatient centers in various parts of the state offer subspecialty pediatric services to young patients. Children's is headquarters for the Regional Poison Control Center (1-800-212-2222), the Southeast Child Safety Institute and a site-based school for long term patients that is accredited by the State Department of Education.

As a teaching and research hospital, Children's is home to the state's only Level I pediatric trauma center, the only pediatric renal care center, the largest pediatric burn center in the Southeast and is one of the largest pediatric outpatient centers in the nation. The UAB Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Children's Hospital is Alabama's single largest provider of specialized pediatric services for all forms of cancer, leukemia, brain and spinal cord tumors, hemophilia and other blood disorders and sickle cell diseases. Children's treats 95-percent of the children in Alabama diagnosed with childhood cancers and other blood disorders, and offers the only pediatric bone marrow transplant program in the state. The Center for Pediatric Research and Innovation houses research space and a state-of-the-art education center.

Nationally, the Hospital is part of one of the major centers for medical research and has been a major contributor to medical science, ranking among the top ten pediatric departments in funding by the National Institutes of Health.

The Children's South Pediatric Outpatient Center, located near I-459 and Acton Road, provides a second location for outpatient surgery referrals providing greater accessibility for residents below Birmingham. This location handles cases that do not require an overnight stay, other specialty outpatient services and an after-hours center.

Focusing on health care alone is only part of our mission - children have many other important needs. For this reason, Children's is committed to helping grow communities where all children have access to health care, live in safe neighborhoods, grow up in economically stable families and attend functional schools that value each child as a unique human being. Great strides have been made within the System to accomplish the child advocacy component by targeting such areas as child passenger safety, violence prevention, motor vehicle and pedestrian safety, fitness, child abuse and neglect and teen pregnancy.

Community health education is an important aspect of preventive medicine and keeping children well. The CHECK Center provides health education information for patients, families, staff, the community and state at 205-939-9377; the Children's Connection Line for physician referrals and information on education programs at 800-504-9768.

The future of Alabama and our nation depends upon children having a healthy, happy childhood, full of learning opportunities that inspire time to grow into productive adults.

Like Birmingham itself, Children's Hospital has changed over the years. In fact, Children's growth has mirrored Birmingham's own economic transformation from blue-collar steel town to the thriving medical community it is today.

It's that transformation that has allowed Children's Hospital to blossom into the dynamic role it holds today as one of the nation's leading pediatric hospitals, and the only hospital in Alabama designed solely for children.

Founded as the Holy Innocents Hospital, Children's was intended to be, in the words of founder Rev. Carl Henckell, "a charity institution for children alone."

Rev. Henckell, rector of All Saints Church, along with Rev. Raimundo de Ovies, rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, and Dr. James E. Dedman, the City of Birmingham's health officer, were responsible for starting Children's Hospital in 1911.

The trio of men were touched by the plight of the area's many sick and needy children in desperate need of healthcare. Continued frustration over the inadequacy of healthcare available to children, especially those of poorer families, drove the group to action.

On June 17, 1911, a small group of Episcopalian men and women gathered to form the Holy Innocents Hospital Association Inc., under the patronage of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Alabama Diocese. Due to the limited financial means of this organization, it was not possible to raise a building that would meet the requirements they foresaw, so they made the best use of the only existing building they could acquire, the All Saints Parish House. Shortly thereafter, the group rented a simple frame residence and converted it to a 12-bed hospital.

In 1913, under the leadership of Mrs. Crawford Johnson, the association raised enough money to enlarge and renovate the house and formally open the Hospital's doors to the public. Soon Holy Innocents Hospital had a model kitchen with a nutrition program, a laboratory and three wards with space enough for 25 children from infancy through 15 years of age. The operating room was said to be the South's finest.

In the Hospital's first year, 89 patients were admitted, a figure that increased 100 percent in the second year to a total of 179 patients. In June of 1914, a majority vote of the Holy Innocents Hospital Association decided the Hospital should be removed from the patronage of the Episcopal Church and the hospital's name was changed to Children's Hospital.

For the first dozen years, support of Children's Hospital was entirely on a voluntary basis, and much of the funds were raised through doll bazaars sponsored by the Women's Auxiliary. Then, in 1923, the Community Chest (now the United Way of Central Alabama) made the Hospital one of its first beneficiaries and reimbursed the difference between the actual cost of service and the amount the patient's family could afford.

On July 2, 1924, a new brick structure on the southwest corner of 31st Street and 7th Avenue was built to accommodate 60 children. On March 9, 1925, Children's Hospital opened its first free clinic, a permanent "outpatient ward." In 1932, a second building increased bed capacity by 50 and added urgently needed surgical facilities.

By the early 1950's, even this facility failed to comply with the city's fire and safety codes. With substantial assistance from the Meyer Foundation and other contributors, land was purchased and a four-story, 100-bed facility was constructed.

On April 30, 1961, the first patients were moved to the Hospital's present location at 1600 7th Avenue South. In 1961, Children's, nearby University Hospital and the UAB Department of Pediatrics, entered into a unique agreement whereby Children's would provide its pediatric care while serving as a learning and teaching resource for the University of Alabama School of Medicine. By 1967, University Hospital had phased out most of its pediatric beds.

The fifth floor addition to Children's Hospital in 1968 brought bed capacity to 160, and by 1972 outpatient space had been doubled. In 1982, another extension was added to the 7th Avenue location.

Even this increase was insufficient to meet the needs for the coming years. In 1989, a tower expansion added 30 more beds to the facility, bringing the total inpatient capacity to 190. The lobby was renovated in a two-story atrium design and ground was broken for an Ambulatory Care Center to house outpatient clinics and surgery facilities.

In 1991, many of the Hospital's outpatient clinics were relocated to the 190,000 square-foot Ambulatory Care Center (ACC). Among the ACC's features are a 12-room surgery suite and 29-bed one day admission center. The Hospital opened its own helipad in 1991 as well.

Highlights for 1992 included the opening of the Rooftop Garden on the Hospital's fourth floor and the securing of approval to add 35 new beds. Another 15 beds were added in July 2001 with the creation of the 5-Northwest Unit. The total number of beds was increased to its current 225.

The Children's Harbor is the newest addition to the CHS campus. The five-story building, owned by the Alabama Children's Hospital Foundation, houses the Children's Harbor Family Center at Children's Hospital, in addition to the Bradley Lecture Center.

Today Children's Hospital is but part of Children's Health System, which includes more than 500 sub specialists statewide and a network of primary and specialty care practices across the state.

What has this growth meant to Alabama? Healthier children, most importantly -- but a byproduct of this growth has been a healthy economy. Simply put, as Children's and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB's Department of Pediatrics is housed at Children's Hospital) have grown, so has Birmingham's reputation as the South's medical hub.

Currently there are more than 500,000 outpatient visits and 55,000 inpatient visits to Children's Health System facilities each year, making Children's Hospital the 10th busiest pediatric outpatient center in the United States. That outpatient volume continued to grow when Children's South opened in June of 1999.

As the number of patients at Children's has increased, so has the number of Children's employees. Since 1979, Children's has gone from employing fewer than 400 people who worked exclusively in Birmingham to a workforce of more than 3,000 working throughout Alabama.

"Simply being the best in today's competitive healthcare market is not good enough if people do not know the difference," said Tom Shufflebarger, Children's chief operating officer. "We have to set the standard in pediatrics, both acute and non-acute care, in our community and throughout the state. We want our logo, our brand, to represent the best and be backed by the best people and systems."

Though much has changed since 1911, Children's commitment to Alabama's most precious resource - its children - has never wavered.