Children's Mercy Hospital is a 367-bed comprehensive pediatric medical center in Kansas City, Missouri that integrates clinical care, research and medical education to provide care for patients ages birth to 21. The hospital's primary service area covers a 150-county area in Missouri and Kansas. Children's Mercy has received national recognition from U.S. News & World Report in ten pediatric specialties. The hospital was the first in Missouri and Kansas to receive Magnet Recognition for excellence in nursing services from the American Nurses Credentialing Center, and has been re-designated four times.
Children's Mercy Hospital is the primary location for Children's Mercy Kansas City, a comprehensive pediatric health system with multiple locations in Missouri and Kansas. The not-for-profit hospital was founded in 1897 by two sisters, one a surgeon and the other a dentist, to provide care for poor and ill children. The hospital quickly grew and expanded services to all children in the region. According to the hospital's Community Benefit Report, in 2012, the hospital provided more than $130 million in uncompensated care, which includes charity care, unreimbursed Medicaid and other means-tested government programs, and subsidized health services.
History
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Berry sisters
Katharine and Alice Berry were both widowed when they came to Kansas City from Wisconsin in 1895. They put each other through school; Katharine being the first to get her medical degree while Alice worked as a school teacher, and then Alice obtained her dentist degreeâ€"both male-only professions during the 19th century. The women were excluded from professional medical groups because of their gender, and their entrepreneurial spirit discouraged. But the two persevered and due to their widowed status, were permitted to control their own finances, which they poured into their medical work with children.
Children's Mercy Hospital was founded in 1897 when Dr. Katharine Berry Richardson, now a surgeon, and her sister Dr. Alice Berry Graham, a dentist, found a crippled, malnourished girl abandoned in the streets of Kansas City, Missouri and treated and cared for her at a rented bed in a hospital. Since no hospital in the city allowed a woman physician on the staff, the sisters continued treating patients by renting beds in a small hospital.
The bed soon became known as the "Mercy Bed," and the need for health care for children continued to grow. By 1899, the Berry sisters had moved into their own building, naming it Free Bed Fund Association for Crippled, Deformed, and Ruptured Children. The hospital soon changed its name to Mercy Hospital before finally becoming Children's Mercy Hospital in 1904.
At first, the public ridiculed the sisters' work, especially the Berry sisters' ardent belief of women-only staffers. Many believed women should work in the home and not be physicians. But as the hospital progressed and showed miraculous outcomes, the ridicule lessened and public opinion soon helped the hospital strive.
Giving all they had, the sisters bought a home in 1909 to work as a hospital, sheltering children. The sisters and few staff members begged for supplies, volunteers, and monetary support. Dr. Kate (Katharine Berry) would keep a sign near the street, letting the public know the needs of the hospital, such as the basic comforts of new sheets, pillow cases, bath towels and canned food.
In 1915, construction on what would be the first official hospital began at Independence Avenue. The hospital flourished in its new home until 1970, when it moved to its current location on Hospital Hill.
Timeline
Significant events in the hospital's history include:
- 1897: Free Bed Fund Association of Sick, Crippled, Deformed and Ruptured Children opened its doors with one bed on June 24.
- 1901: Central Governing Board of the Free Bed Fund approves the Mercy name.
- 1904: Officially called Mercy Hospital, the new hospital opens with five beds at 414 Highland Avenue.
- 1916: The hospital moves to Independence and Woodland on November 27.
- 1970: Hospital staff moves 39 children to the hospital's current location, 2401 Gillham Road.
- 1995: Five-story Hall Family Outpatient Center opens
- 1996: Seven-story Herman and Helen Sutherland Inpatient Tower open.
- 1997: Children's Mercy South opens in Overland Park, Kansas in October.
- 2000: Staff and patients move into a new patient tower, the Paul and Betty Henson Patient Tower, a complement to the Sutherland Tower.
- 2003: Awarded Magnet designation for nursing excellence, the first hospital in Missouri or Kansas and just the third children's hospital to achieve this honor from the American Nurses Credentialing Center.
- 2003: Pediatric Research Center opens on top two floors of the new Clinic and Research Building on Hospital Hill.
- 2004: Children's Mercy South opens building housing new patient unit and expanded urgent care center.
- 2009: Bioethics Center opens.
- 2012: Children's Mercy East opens in Independence, Missouri
- 2012: The Elizabeth Ann Hall Patient Tower opens on the Hospital Hill campus.
- 2012: Children's Mercy opens the Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine, the first facility of its kind completely integrated within a children's hospital.
- 2013: Children's Mercy Blue Valley opens in Overland Park, Kansas, housing urgent care and sports medicine services, including a gym for sports therapy and rehabilitation.
- 2013: Children's Mercy Wichita, a regional referral center opens in Wichita, Kansas.
- 2013: The campus at 2401 Gillham Road in Kansas City, Missouri is renamed the Children's Mercy Adele Hall Campus.
- 2015: Children's Mercy South in Overland Park, Kansas is renamed Children's Mercy Hospital Kansas.
Research
The research program at Children's Mercy features 48,000 square-feet of dedicated clinical research space and nearly 100 physicians and scientists actively participating in research studies.
It is one of the 10 stakeholder institutions in the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, which also includes the University of Kansas, MRI Global, the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the Stowers Institute.
The hospital's research is focused on four strategic areas:
- Pediatric therapeutics
- Pediatric genomic medicine
- Health services and outcomes
- Health care delivery
The hospital is one of 13 designated Pediatric Pharmacology Research Units. Hospital clinical pharmacologists work closely with the Pediatric Trials Network, researching and developing accurate drug doses and devices for children.
The hospital's Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine was termed "among the most technologically advanced in the world" in a January 2014 Bloomberg article. In 2012, the hospital’s Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine's development of a rapid whole genome sequencing approach was named one of Time magazine's Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs.
Clinical care
Children's Mercy Hospital is located on the Children's Mercy Adele Hall campus. Hospital services include a Level 1 Trauma Center; a Level IV Intensive Care Nursery; heart, liver, kidney, blood and marrow transplant programs; and more than 40 pediatric subspecialty clinics.
Academics
Children's Mercy is an Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education institutional sponsor. Graduate medical education focuses on the development of programs based on the ACGME core competencies and the acquisition of clinical skills.
Children's Mercy is academically affiliated with University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine and offers a pediatric residency program that annually accepts 24 categorical pediatric residents, three preliminary residents, and six internal medicine/pediatrics residents. Residents currently hail from 42 medical schools representing 25 states throughout the United States and two foreign countries. Children’s Mercy also offers 28 pediatric fellowship programs to train the next generation of pediatric subspecialists.
In addition, Children's Mercy is designated a principal pediatric teaching hospital for The University of Kansas Medical Center. In 2013, Children’s Mercy, The University of Kansas Hospital, The University of Kansas Medical Center, and The University of Kansas Physicians announced they were working to develop a single, integrated pediatric program allowing the institutions to enhance clinical care for children, advance pediatric academic development, expand pediatric research initiatives, and strengthen advocacy activities on behalf of children in the Midwest and surrounding region.
Expanding its boundaries beyond the Midwest, Children’s Mercy has established educational partnership programs for foreign residents and for its own residents study abroad. Children’s Mercy has formal relationships with hospitals in China, Panama and Mexico.
Rankings and performance
Children's Mercy Hospital was one of 87 facilities in the United States that made national rankings in at least one of 10 pediatric specialties analyzed for the 2015-'16 Best Children's Hospitals, by U.S. News & World Report. The hospital has consecutively been nationally ranked in all ten pediatric specialty areas:
- Diabetes and endocrinology
- Gastroenterology and GI surgery
- Neonatology
- Nephrology
- Neurology and neurosurgery
- Orthopedics
- Pulmonology
- Urology
- Cancer
- Cardiology
The highest ranking was nephrology at #5.
In 2013 Parents magazine ranked Children's Mercy at #14 among the country's best children's hospitals.
The hospital has also been designated a "Magnet Recognized" center by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, won the "Gold Achievement" award for a fit friendly work site in 2012 by the American Heart Association, and has been designated as Kansas City's Healthiest Employer by the Kansas City Business Journal in 2013.
CMH's Center for Pediatric Genomic Medicine has been termed "among the most technologically advanced in the world".
Naming rights
On November 19, 2015, Children's Mercy announced a ten year partnership with Sporting Kansas City. The deal includes Children's Mercy getting the naming rights to the team's stadium, now named Children's Mercy Park, as well as the team's training center and the championship field and training center at Swope Soccer Village. The partnership focuses on strengthening the community by improving access to pediatric-trained sports medicine; protecting youth athletes and providing education to coaches and parents. The hospital will also open a Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Center at the United States Soccer Federation National Training Center, which is set to open in 2017.
References
External links
- Official website
