A Common Thread of Exceptional Care

More than 80 years ago...
A group of women shared a vision of uncommon boldness -one that would save the lives of literally tens of thousands of children.

These women envisioned a city in which all children would have what every child needs to grow up strong and healthy.  They began as a sewing circle called the Le Bonheur Club, making clothing for the city's orphans. Bound by a common thread of caring, this group redefined its vision in the 1940s to providing excellent healthcare for all children.

Through the commitment of the women of the Le Bonheur Club and the generosity of the community, Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center became a reality, opening in 1952.

At the dedication of the hospital, Le Bonheur Club members tied the hospital's keys to 12 balloons and released them into the sky to symbolize their promise that the hospital's doors would never be closed to any ill or injured child.

Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center has kept its promise through the years, providing excellent healthcare to generations of children. It is that common thread of exceptional care that connects Le Bonheur's past to its present.

When it opened, Le Bonheur was called "the most modern" of children's hospitals, "having the latest equipment," by the Daily Press Scimitar. We still believe that the children of today deserve what the children of the 1950s received when Le Bonheur was fi rst built - the most modern hospital and the best medical care available.

Facing Change
Today, Le Bonheur continues to provide excellent care, but the once-modern facility is now bursting at the seams. The current Emergency Department was built for an annual capacity of 38,000 patients, but now sees about 78,000 per year. Because of space limitations, as many as 20 patients per month had to be transferred from our Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) to intensive care units in other states during the peak of the 2003 winter season.

In 2005, more than 130,000 children from 47 states came to Le Bonheur because of our sophisticated diagnostic capabilities and comprehensive medical care. About 77 percent of our young patients live in Shelby County or its adjacent counties.

Children are transported by helicopter and ambulance to Le Bonheur every day because it is the only comprehensive pediatric medical center in the region with the range and depth of pediatric specialists and subspecialists necessary to care for some of the sickest and most fragile children. Cardiology, neurology, gastroenterology and pulmonology are only a few of the highly specialized services available at Le Bonheur.

Like other children's hospitals around the country, our purpose is fourfold: high quality clinical care for patients and their families, training for future pediatricians and pediatric specialists to care for tomorrow's children, research in pediatric health issues and community service and advocacy.

Meeting the Challenge
As announced in June 2005 Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center is ready to grow to meet the challenges of caring for the children of today and tomorrow. The new Le Bonheur is to be located north of the present Le Bonheur site at what is now the location of the Memphis Mental Health Institute (MMHI) at Poplar and Dunlap. With the valuable assistance of Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen and many local officials, MMHI will be moved into a new building within the Medical District, freeing up the current location for the new Le Bonheur, which will be bounded by Dunlap and Poplar avenues and Pauline and Washington streets.

The new Le Bonheur will consist of 12 floors comprising 650,000 square feet, with a capacity of 230 inpatient beds. At completion, the new campus will contain nearly one million square feet, a net gain of 350,000 square feet. The master plan for the new Le Bonheur has been carefully researched and developed to allow for future needs.

The new Le Bonheur will be the most technologically advanced hospital in the region.  The new facility also will include a surgical center with 14 operating rooms - four more than the current hospital. It will offer a three room cardiac catheterization and interventional radiology suite and a four-room endoscopy suite.

Other features include space for our many specialty clinics, a new patient
tower with 127 patient care rooms and a Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. The Emergency Department and the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) will double in size, as will the research space on the hospital campus.

Treating the Whole Family and Child
Part of our mission at Le Bonheur is to treat the entire child, not just a medical condition. Healthy outcomes are also more likely when parents and other family members aren't just spectators, but active participants in the child's healing process. 

To this end, special attention is being placed on making the new hospital campus a family-centered environment.  All patient rooms will be private and designed to accommodate two parents staying with their child. There will also be a Parent Stay Unit for family members who must remain close by during critical care periods and a large Parent Resource Center with access to learning materials, the Internet and educators.  A Teen Room, as well as play areas on each floor and in the Emergency Department, will aid us in our mission to treat the whole child, rather than just the medical condition.

The Child Life Program will offer art therapy, music therapy and other age-appropriate activities for patients. And the Starlight Room will provide pain management in a child friendly environment. The Winter Garden area, landscaped courtyards and green areas planned for the new hospital will complete the setting by providing soothing surroundings for patients and families.

Counting the Cost
The estimated cost of this new children's hospital is just under $300 million. Le Bonheur must raise $100 million toward that goal from its many friends. A major fundraising campaign, chaired by David Stevens, chairman and chief executive officer of Accredo Health Inc., has already raised almost $60 million of the required $100 million (as of January 2006). Another $100 million will be achieved through the sale of bonds, and Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare will fund the balance from capital reserves.

Key to Le Bonheur's future is the strength of its medical care and research, including the creation of Institutes of Excellence. Le Bonheur already has begun to build world-class programs in two key pediatric specialties: neuroscience and cardiology/cardiothoracic surgery. But our vision for these institutes can only be accomplished with a major investment in our overall facilities that will, in turn, attract and retain renowned physicians whose clinical skills, research and teaching can impact the health and well-being of the community.

Neuroscience: A Center of Excellence
The Le Bonheur Neuroscience Institute serves as a regional and national center for the evaluation and treatment of infants, children and adolescents with various neurological disorders, including birth defects, degenerative neurological diseases, learning and behavior disorders, sleep disorders, tumors, epilepsy, spasticity and traumatic brain and spinal injuries.

About 1,500 children with neurological problems are hospitalized each year at Le Bonheur. The following are only a select few of the Institute's many achievements:

• Le Bonheur has one of the largest surgical brain tumor programs in the United States. The program boasts some of the best survival rates for specific types of brain tumors.
• In 2005, Le Bonheur's Comprehensive Epilepsy Center attained Level IV status - the highest rating for an epilepsy center recognized by the National Association of Epilepsy Centers. This means that Le Bonheur provides the most comprehensive and state-of-the-art medical and surgical treatment of children with epilepsy.
• In 2005, Le Bonheur recruited a nationally recognized team of four pediatric neurologists, specializing in epileptology.
• Le Bonheur has four board-certified pediatric neurosurgeons on staff who performed more than 540 neurosurgical procedures in 2004.
• In 2003 and 2004 alone, Le Bonheur treated more than 2,600 children with traumatic head injuries.

Cardiac Institute: A Center of Excellence
Approximately eight in every 1,000 children are born with congenital heart defects, and nearly twice as many children in the United States die each year from congenital heart disease than die from all forms of childhood cancer combined.  Having a top-tier pediatric cardiology program, such as the one at Le Bonheur, is particularly crucial for the care of newborns.

Pediatric cardiothoracic surgery is extremely specialized. Because most heart surgeries on infants and children are performed to correct congenital anomalies, the surgical skills required of a pediatric heart surgeon are far different from those of a physician specializing in adult heart surgery. Le Bonheur is seeing amazing growth in its cardiology program:

• In the past three years, Le Bonheur has recruited six cardiologists, including a nationally recognized pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon as chief of the pediatric cardiothoracic surgery program.
• Cardiac specialties at Le Bonheur range from electrophysiology to echocardiography.
• The number of cardiothoracic surgery procedures at Le Bonheur doubled from 149 in 2003 to 311 for 2004. Cath lab procedures increased from 1,131 in 2002 to more than 2,400 in 2004.
• Construction on a second cardiac catheterization laboratory in the current hospital is under way, as is renovation of another operating room to accommodate the rapidly growing number of cardiac procedures.
• A pediatric cardiology fellowship program will start in July 2006 to provide training for future pediatric cardiologists.
• Pediatric cardiologists hold clinics throughout the Tristate region, including Tupelo, Miss., Jackson, Tenn., and Jonesboro, Ark.

Research
Housed in a 32,000-square-foot facility within Le Bonheur, the Children's Foundation Research Center (CFRC) brings hope and healing to children for whom no answers have yet been found. Since 1995, CFRC investigators have received more than $16 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal grant sources and $14 million in nonfederal support.

The CFRC supports more than 30 fulltime scientists and employs more than 75 research technicians, postdoctoral fellows, research nurses and study coordinators. The researchers at the CFRC have seen significant results from studies in the prevention and treatment of obesity, accident prevention, treatment of pneumonia, and the testing of new drugs for pediatric use.

The new Musette and Allen Morgan Jr. Foundation for the Study of Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis also is based in the CFRC and sponsors research to find new treatments for this debilitating liver disease.  Through the expansion of the CFRC, which will be part of Le Bonheur's building program, the work of our researchers will have an even greater impact on children's care. As a pediatric medical center of excellence, the distance from a researcher's laboratory bench to a child's bed is so short that it can save a life, bringing hope and promise of a bright future to children and their families.

We Are Declaring Our Future
Like every hospital, we must confront the reality of rising costs for medical services, equipment and the latest technologies, as well as the fact that many of the families we serve do not have adequate health insurance. But when it comes to healthcare, no child should have to accept less than the best.

Fifty-four years ago, Le Bonheur Club members and countless others in the community stepped forward with faith in the vision and determination to build what was then "the most modern of children's hospitals."

We have come full circle.

In 1950, community leaders like Palmer Brown, Allen Morgan Sr., J. Everett Pidgeon, Raymond C. Firestone, C.J. Wagner, J.T. Russell and others shared the vision of the Le Bonheur Club.

Today, the names of the community leaders are different. And so will be the names of others in the community and region who will step forward with Le Bonheur Club members to ensure that the Le Bonheur promise - a common thread of exceptional care - is woven into the fabric of the future for every child.