Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center
Encyclopedia
Le Bonheur Children's Hospital is a 255-bed, tertiary care children's hospital
Children's hospital
A children's hospital is a hospital which offers its services exclusively to children . The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th century, as pediatric medical and surgical specialties separated from internal medicine and adult surgical specialties...

 located in Downtown
Downtown Memphis, Tennessee
Downtown Memphis, Tennessee is the central business district of Memphis, Tennessee and is located along the Mississippi River between Interstate 40 to the north, Interstate 55 to the south and I-240 to the east, where it abuts Midtown Memphis....

 Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

. It has more than 500 medical staff representing 45 pediatric specialties. It is a teaching hospital affiliated with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center
University of Tennessee Health Science Center
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis includes the Colleges of Allied Health Sciences, Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy. Its pediatric residency program is affiliated with Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center and residents in pediatrics,...

. Physicians training in general and subspecialty areas of pediatrics
Pediatrics
Pediatrics or paediatrics is the branch of medicine that deals with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. A medical practitioner who specializes in this area is known as a pediatrician or paediatrician...

, surgery
Surgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...

, radiology
Radiology
Radiology is a medical specialty that employs the use of imaging to both diagnose and treat disease visualized within the human body. Radiologists use an array of imaging technologies to diagnose or treat diseases...

, pathology
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....

, maternal-fetal medicine, orthopedics, otolaryngology
Otolaryngology
Otolaryngology or ENT is the branch of medicine and surgery that specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of ear, nose, throat, and head and neck disorders....

, neurosciences, cardiology
Cardiology
Cardiology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the heart . The field includes diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease and electrophysiology...

 and other medical specialties undergo service rotations at the hospital. The children's hospital primarily serves children from 95 counties and six states including Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

, Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

 and Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

 but also serves patients from all over the world due to its nationally recognized brain tumor
Brain tumor
A brain tumor is an intracranial solid neoplasm, a tumor within the brain or the central spinal canal.Brain tumors include all tumors inside the cranium or in the central spinal canal...

 program. It is the home of the Children's Foundation Research Center
Children's Foundation Research Center
Children's Foundation Research Center, created in 1995 by the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, partnered with Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center and the Children’s Foundation of Memphis, is a non-profit clinical and research organization to promote the health of children in the...

. It functions as the region's primary level 1 pediatric trauma center, the next closest being either Arkansas Children's Hospital
Arkansas Children's Hospital
The Arkansas Children's Hospital is a pediatric hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas. It is the only pediatric Level I trauma center in Arkansas and the sixth largest in the United States, serving children from birth to age twenty-one...

 in Little Rock, Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

 or the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt
Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt
The Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, also known as Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, is a children's hospital affiliated with Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. The hospital was ranked among the best children's hospitals in the nation by U.S...

 in Nashville, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

.

History

Le Bonheur was founded in 1952 by the Le Bonheur Club, originally a women's sewing circle, and was originally an orphanage
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...

 dedicated to caring for poor children. The Le Bonheur Club members raised all of the money for the initial investment for the hospital. When the doors opened on June 15, 1952, the Le Bonheur Club President Mrs. Howard Pritchard stated, "The doors of Le Bonheur will never be found closed and will forever hereafter be open to those who come in need, seeking its help."

Since 1952, the medical center has gone through two major expansion projects and is currently raising $100 million to build "the New Le Bonheur," to be located on the adjacent block due north of the present site.

In 1995, Le Bonheur became a part of the Methodist Healthcare group. It is supported by the Memphis, Mississippi and Arkansas conferences of The United Methodist Church
United Methodist Church
The United Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination which is both mainline Protestant and evangelical. Founded in 1968 by the union of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, the UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley...

.

In 2007, Meri Armour, MSN, MBA was named president/chief executive officer.

The emergency H1N1
H1N1
'Influenza A virus is a subtype of influenza A virus and was the most common cause of human influenza in 2009. Some strains of H1N1 are endemic in humans and cause a small fraction of all influenza-like illness and a small fraction of all seasonal influenza. H1N1 strains caused a few percent of...

tent at Le Bonheur was featured on NBC national news on September 28, 2009.

On December 3, 2010, Le Bonheur Children's Hospital opened the emergnecy department in its newly renovated 12-story patient-care tower, and moved its patients into the new tower in two days on December 4-5.

Pedi-Flite Team

Le Bonheur maintains a fleet of two ambulances equipped for critical care transport and staffed by an EMT-IV or Paramedic, an RN, and an RRT. PediFlite also contracts with Hospital Wing in Memphis for helicopter transports utilizing PediFlite's crew. PediFlite has a 150 mile primary ground and rotor radius. We are able to do long distance ground transports as well as fixed wing transports. PediFlite transports any patient from birth to 18 years of age. PediFlite is dispatched from the hospital transfer center.

Future Development

Le Bonheur is planning a $235 million US Dollar expansion onto the current campus. This expansion will put the facility at 1 million square feet. The expansion will involve the construction of a 12 story tower and a 330 space parking garage. The new tower will accommodate 230 beds and 14 room surgical suite. After the construction of the new tower is complete, a portion of the old facility will be torn down to build a new 490 space parking garage, new entrance, and green space that can be utilized for later expansions. This expansion will also involve enlarging the emergency department with the plans to handle patient volumes through the year 2014. Construction was scheduled to begin in the summer of 2007 and is expected to be finished in 2010.

On February 14, 2008, ground was broken on the new expansion by Le Bonheur executives. The site for the expansion is the site of the old Memphis Mental Health Institute, which was demolished to make way for it.

External links

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