Historical Timeline - Get an at-a-glance view of major happenings at CHOC over the past 40 years.

1960 to 1970
The Early Years

When plans for a Children’s Hospital of Orange County were in the formative stages, Orange County was experiencing a phenomenal period of growth and prosperity. In 1950, the population was 220,000, but by 1960, the population had grown to 764,000. New housing tracts were spreading out across vacant lots, roads and freeways were rapidly being constructed and expanded, and orange groves were being replaced by manufacturing and industry. Eight new cities incorporated during the 1950s; six more were added in the 1960s. Everyone, it seemed, was attracted by the endless sunshine, beaches, and full employment that Orange County seemed to offer, and for young families, the area appeared to be the ideal place to raise a family.

The decade of the 1960s saw construction of many of the County’s famous landmarks. The University of California at Irvine was dedicated in 1964, the California Angels moved to Anaheim Stadium in 1966, and jets took off for the first time from the newly modernized Orange County Airport. In 1960, the Irvine Company hired William Pereira to develop a master plan for its unused land. In 1968, the C. J. Segerstrom family developed South Coast Plaza on sixty acres of lima bean fields, and in 1968, Fashion Island opened its doors at Newport Center.

What Orange County did not have was a regional medical facility dedicated to caring for the specialized needs of children. The County’s 230,000 children, one third of the population, were cared for in small pediatric wards of local hospitals or, when necessary, sent miles away to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA).
A small group of Orange County pediatricians, including Drs. Sidney Adler, Samuel Camarata, William Friend, Raymond Harris, Edward Russell, and Albert Sheldon, became dedicated to filling the growing need for a children’s hospital in Orange County, and on February 12, 1960, formed a diverse Executive Council of 52 members from all walks of life. On April 2, 1960, this Executive Council, which included such luminaries as Walter Knott and Walt Disney, launched a building fundraising drive with a kick-off dinner featuring the Lennon Sisters as celebrity entertainment.

The Executive Council soon discovered that they wouldn’t qualify for government funding unless the children’s hospital was part of a larger general hospital complex. The Sisters of Saint Joseph already had an application pending before the state for a major expansion of Saint Joseph Hospital in Orange. The Sisters agreed to add an additional wing for children and lease it back to the Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) to establish and run an independent community children’s hospital. The Sisters also offered the land on which the pediatric facility would be situated on the condition that the Executive Council and the community raise $800,000 for construction and equipment. While CHOC would be physically adjacent to St. Joseph Hospital for the purpose of sharing some services, such as radiology, laboratories, and surgical suites, the two hospitals would remain separate institutions with their own administrative and medical staffs.

Construction bids went out, only to result in a pleasant surprise: the low bid from Gust Newberg Construction for the combined CHOC-St. Joseph project was one million less than expected. Making an insightful decision, CHOC leaders, then under the direction of Robert A. Daily, CHOC’s first permanent Board President, decided to add a third story to the original two-story plan, but to build it only as a “shell” to allow for future expansion when funding became available.

By January 1961, total contributions reached $820,000, qualifying CHOC for $1.8 million in state and federal funding. Permits were obtained for the CHOC-St. Joseph project, at that time the largest project ($6.1 million) in the history of the City of Orange, and groundbreaking ceremonies were held on March 16, 1962. CHOC was officially incorporated as a separate hospital by the state of California on January 30, 1964.

Construction on the hospital moved rapidly, and CHOC opened its doors to the children of Orange County on October 5, 1964. Twelve-year old Kendall “Ken” Spicer became CHOC’s first official patient. Recuperating from surgery to lengthen a congenitally short leg, Ken was widely photographed by the media as his gurney was wheeled into CHOC. He was one of only four patients in the 62 beds on CHOC’s first day, but the facility quickly filled. In CHOC’s first two months of existence, the hospital admitted 300 children, with an average stay of 4.5 days. In the first 60 days of operation alone, there were 532 visits to the emergency room, 82 minor surgeries, 47 major surgeries, and approximately 600 radiology exams. Eight to ten children had to be turned away each day due to limited staff and facilities. By 1967, CHOC staff had treated more than 11,000 children.

When CHOC opened its doors in 1964, a number of specialty clinics were already in place, but others were rapidly added. In 1965, the Special Care Unit opened, followed quickly by the Birth Defects Unit, the Outpatient Clinic, the Speech-Hearing Clinic, the Mental Retardation Diagnostic Clinic, and the Dental Clinic. By 1969, the Outpatient Department alone had 28 specialty clinics up and running. Over the next few decades, CHOC would continue to add other specialized clinics, with each one designed to ensure Orange County children had access to the latest medical technology and the most comprehensive range of patient services.

Less than two months after opening, CHOC leaders began another major fundraising campaign to secure the $450,000 needed to complete the third floor shell and to increase the number of beds from 62 to a goal of 114. After an extensive fundraising drive, the third floor opened on June 3, 1968. The new floor addition, coupled with the earlier opening of CHOC’s Outpatient Clinic, provided immediate relief, but as CHOC moved into the next decade, overcrowding would continue to be an issue.

For CHOC, these formative years laid the groundwork for the community support that has assisted the hospital to this day. In 1964, the Volunteer Worker Bureau, now the Volunteer Program, began compiling a list of potential workers for the hospital’s service areas. Eight months after CHOC’s opening, volunteers had already donated 5,000 hours of service, with 18 volunteers giving over 100 hours each. To date, thousands of volunteers have logged more than 48,000 work hours, providing needed assistance to all hospital departments. Volunteers have ranged in age from early teens to senior citizens. Men, women, and even couples have staffed the gift shop, run errands, read stories, played with children, assisted physical therapy and nursing units, and helped with such routine tasks as filing, photocopying, and answering telephones. A few very special volunteers cuddle newborns in the intensive care unit—the hospital’s most requested volunteer position.

In March 1962, Women’s Guilds began forming around Orange County with the purpose of acquainting the community with the mission of the hospital and raising money to support the work of CHOC. The preliminary meetings were a series of teas under the leadership of Joan Irvine Smith. The women quickly began seeking community contributions for the $2.5 million CHOC construction project. The first guild, the Mother Goose Guild of Fullerton, was formed on May 18, 1962, followed by eight additional guilds even before the hospital was built. Each guild was located in different geographical areas of Orange County. To coordinate activities among the guilds, a Guild Council, consisting of two representatives from each group, was formed in 1964. By 1982, the guilds reached the remarkable $3 million mark in total fundraising, a milestone never before reached by any Orange County women’s hospital support group. Over the next three decades, the Women’s Guilds were to raise more than $18 million dollars for all types of CHOC work. There are now 16 guilds and one teenage group, the Jack and Jill Chocettes, that make up the CHOC guild support group structure. The guild’s 1800 members raise money through a variety of fundraising events, including golf tournaments, dinner dances, road rallies, home tours, art auctions, theme parties, and an annual All Guilds Fashion Show.

In October 1964, the first of CHOC’s Thrift Stores opened, and additional stores were added from 1967 to 1995. Under the direction of the Children’s Hospital Foundation of Orange County, the thrift stores, which sell donated clothing, furniture and other household items, as well as new merchandise purchased for resale, are now located throughout Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

Just two months after the hospital’s opening, CHOC Talk, the hospital’s flagship publication, made its debut. Less than a year later, CHOC Talk set the standard for excellence in publishing. The American Hospital Association selected it as the second best hospital publication in the nation. Under the direction of Charles Albee, Community Relations Director and Editor, the first issue debuted as a four-page publication, but the newsletter has grown in considerable length and content as CHOC’s activities, financial operations, and facilities have expanded. CHOC Talk is still enjoyed by a wide audience of hospital supporters, patient families, and those in the medical community. Over the years, the Public Relations department has also produced other newsletters, such as the Medical Staff Bulletin , Bear Bulletin, and KidsHealth, both in print and online formats, as well as numerous brochures, flyers, invitations, activity books, and other printed materials, all designed to communicate with medical personnel and the general public.

During this decade, the Vietnam War was brought closer to CHOC in an unusual way. While serving his tour of duty in Da Nang, Dr. Douglas Henning discovered a frail 20-month-old girl who suffered from a heart defect. Dr. Henning worked with his wife Linda, a registered nurse at CHOC, to arrange for little Nguyen Thi Thanh Phuong, nicknamed Suzie, to come to Orange County for life-saving treatment. All medical expenses were donated by CHOC and its doctors. Suzie was the first CHOC patient to be monitored closely by the media, and her four-month struggle was watched closely by members of the local and international press. The public rejoiced when Suzie’s operation was declared a success, and she was able to return home with her mother in March 1969. Dr. Henning returned to become CHOC’s senior resident.

Not to be forgotten during this decade was the creation of CHOC’s most popular patient: CHOCO the Bear. Designed first as a two-dimensional logo by Disney artist Bob Moore in April 1960, CHOCO’s features have changed slightly over the years, but he remains the hospital’s most recognizable symbol. CHOCO’s heart-shaped bandage on his left arm, the closest to his heart, and his sparkling smile have been a continuous comfort to ill and injured children.

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1970-1980
The Challenging Years

The 1970s ushered in a period of severe recession and inflation, ending an era of unprecedented growth and prosperity for Orange County. Housing costs increased as defense spending declined, and many firms—Hughes, McDonnell-Douglas, Northrop—laid off workers and cut back production.
By the mid-1970s, unchecked growth and immigration had became major issues. Tensions grew as illegal immigrants poured across the border seeking jobs and a better life. They joined a growing Hispanic population, one of the largest and oldest minorities in Orange County.

The federal government, opening its doors to Vietnam War refugees, designated the U.S. Marine Corps Camp Pendleton as a relocation center. Thousands of refugees went no further than Orange County, settling in Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, and Westminster. Many immigrants started their own businesses, developing small communities within larger ones. Others found employment only as low-income laborers and were forced to live in cramped housing. The Indochinese population in Orange County soon grew to 87,000, still the highest concentration of this ethnic group in America.

The highlight of the decade was 1976—the year of the American Bicentennial and the 200th anniversary of settlement in Orange County—which brought a dramatic increase in interest in the County and its history. Residents researched their genealogy, raised funds to restore decaying historic structures, and renewed interest in the contributions that ethnic groups had made to the County and their communities. Thousands lined up to see the Freedom Train as it rolled into Anaheim and San Juan Capistrano with its extensive collection of Americana memorabilia.

Despite the early warning signs of the recession to come, CHOC started the decade with optimism. A State Regional Mental Retardation Center opened on March 2, 1970. Two years later, the Neonatal Transport Team was established, and by 1981, the Team was transporting more critically ill infants and children than any other hospital in California. That same year, CHOC also began a school program in conjunction with the Orange Unified School District. This full inpatient school program allowed children to keep up with their studies while hospitalized.

In 1974, Harold (Hal) W. Wade took over as CHOC President and instituted a much needed program of fiscal conservatism that was to have far-reaching consequences over the next two decades. In reviewing CHOC’s financial records, Wade found a hospital that owned none of its buildings and was heavily in debt. He immediately instituted a private practice plan for hospital-based physicians known as the Subspecialty Medical Group (SMG).

On June 12, 1975, Wade and the Board of Directors purchased CHOC Tower, a five-story structure across the street from the original Children’s Hospital. A capital fund drive was started to secure funds to renovate and convert this building into a true pediatric hospital, including the purchase of equipment and the expansion of ancillary services. Between 1977 and 1979, CHOC moved into the fourth and fifth floors, and in 1979, new Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care Units, with state-of-the-art diagnostic and monitoring equipment, opened. The additional 48 beds, the first real beds owned by the hospital, and the purchase of the Tower gave CHOC its first fiscal independence.

While CHOC originally intended to move into all of the Tower floors, architectural studies of the building conversion showed that the floor-to-ceiling height was insufficient to accommodate the space-consuming electrical and mechanical systems required by the state. Consultants determined that it would be too costly to convert the building. This discovery, while disappointing, triggered ambitious new building projects that were to change the face of CHOC forever in the decades to come.

While funds were being raised for CHOC Tower renovations, another area—CHOC’s Children’s Garden—was opened to ill children and their families. First suggested by patient Bobby Coffin, who would often gaze out his hospital window and wish he could play outside with the birds and flowers, this quiet area was dedicated on April 9, 1976. The garden’s flower beds, arbor, benches, and barbeque helped make hospitalization a little bit more pleasant for sick and injured children.

The decade closed with the founding of Padrinos, a men’s group dedicated to maintaining CHOC’s excellent pediatric care. Established on March 21, 1979, the group’s membership climbed from 22 to 225 by the end of the first year. While the Padrinos—Spanish for “godfathers”—began as a men’s support group, the organization voted in 1992 to open its membership to women. Over the years this active group has helped CHOC patients in many ways. Today, the Padrinos plan fundraising events each year, including an annual charity golf classic, tennis festival, Academy Awards party, a bicycle event known as Tour De Choc, a Heroes of the Heart banquet and auction, and the CHOC/Disneyland Resort Walk, the hospital’s largest fundraising event begun in 1991. The Padrinos also sponsor the annual Neonatal Intensive Care Reunion and National Cancer Survivor’s Day events.

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1980-1990
The Planning Years

By 1980, Orange County was a land of contrasts. Sleek multi-million dollar industrial parks were situated next to blighted business districts. Luxurious mansions, gated retirement communities, and exclusive planned communities contrasted sharply with the homeless living under freeway bridges, and the poor crammed into Buena Clinton, a post-war Garden Grove apartment complex called the worst slum in Orange County. Fifty percent of all Orange County families made more than $36,000 a year, far higher than the national average, but pockets of poverty, especially in minority communities, were expanding.

The County faced two major problems in the 1980s: transportation and housing. The County’s roads and freeways built in the 1950s and 1960s needed repair and were no longer sufficient to handle growing traffic. The 1980 census revealed that three-fourths of the County’s residents drove to work alone, increasing the burden on already crammed freeways. A one-cent sales tax designed to improve transportation was soundly defeated in June 1984, and forced the Orange County Transportation Commission to turn to assessment fees on new residential and commercial development to gain sorely needed funds. The traffic problem was to worsen in the next decade.

The 1970 recession and an inflated housing market, fed in part by massive speculation, led to a pent-up need for new housing. To fill this need, new housing developments, such as Rancho Mission Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita, started in unincorporated areas of the County. Fearing industrial flight to less affluent areas, the Orange County Board of Supervisors adopted a housing policy that required developers of unincorporated areas to designate at least 25 percent of a project as affordable, selling for $70,000 to $100,000.

As the economy picked up, so did optimism and new building. Some of Orange County’s most recognizable structures went up during this period. In 1980, Garden Grove’s Crystal Cathedral was completed, becoming the largest religious structure in California. The San Juan Capistrano Library, designed by influential architect Michael Graves, opened in 1983 and quickly became one of the County’s architectural wonders. In 1985, the 21-story Center Tower Building, the tallest building in Orange County, was completed in Costa Mesa. A new 3,000-seat Orange County Performing Arts Center opened on March 19, 1986 with a glittering gala. Construction began on an expansion of the Orange County Airport, which had been renamed the John Wayne Airport, allowing for millions more passenger departures. Three new cities—Dana Point, Mission Viejo, and Laguna Nigel—were also incorporated. The 1980s ended on a high note in 1989 when residents celebrated the County’s centennial.

For CHOC, the 1980s were years of expansion, medical milestones, and massive construction planning. With the expansion into CHOC Tower completed, the hospital was able to add 12 new beds on the third flood of the original CHOC East building. A new extended Short Stay Unit, opened on July 6, 1982, was made possible by a $93,000 grant from the CHOC Padrinos.

While the new expansion raised the bed total to 202, it still was not enough. Not only was there insufficient medical space, but there was also inadequate office space for business, data control, and administrative staff, who were forced to set up headquarters in modular units in the parking lot.

During the summer of 1983, President and CEO Harold Wade and the Board of Directors purchased the Pacific Telephone Building, Pacific Telephone Company’s accounting headquarters for many years, on the corner of Main and La Veta. The building, which came to be known as CHOC West, was quickly converted into administrative offices, a medical education center, and the CHOC Clinic and Ambulatory Care Center. CHOC West now houses Ambulatory Care Services, including the Outpatient Clinic and Outpatient Pharmacy, as well as Psychology Services, Medical Records, Computer Services, the Pediatric Sub-Specialty Medical Office, and several administrative departments.

After completing CHOC West’s renovation, administrators, staff, and consultants began plans for a massive $60 million, five-phase construction project that would completely transform the Children’s Hospital. The extensive plan included a 70,000-square-foot, five-story Research and Clinic Building, which would provide an expanded clinic and four floors dedicated to research and development, and a new six-story, 180,000-square-foot pediatric hospital building to be called CHOC North. Patient care at CHOC North was to be augmented by a new pharmacy, chapel, cafeteria, gift shop, doctor and parent lounges, and consultation rooms. Underground tunnels would connect all the CHOC facilities and a new rooftop helipad would enhance air access. Following completion of the new patient facility, CHOC Tower was to be torn down and a new radiology satellite facility, circular drive, main entrance, and lobby would be constructed.

Construction began on the CHOC Research and Clinic Building, and on October 5, 1989—exactly 25 years after the opening of the original CHOC building—groundbreaking for the new patient facility took place. All construction was expected to be finished by 1991. When completed, the new facilities would consolidate CHOC’s patient care services in one building, allowing the hospital to relinquish the leased portion of adjacent Saint Joseph Hospital. As Harold Wade was to note, these milestone construction projects would ensure that the hospital was “ready to meet the growing needs of the community well into the 21st century.”

CHOC’s $60 million construction project was remarkable not only for its size and scope, but also for the fact that the building program was completely dependent upon contributions. Because CHOC is a nonprofit corporation, the revenue from health care would not have generated the amount of money necessary to fund such an ambitious expansion program. The hospital had to rely on fundraising efforts and community support to finance the project. A Campaign Leadership Team, formed in 1988 to coordinate fundraising, raised $45 million for the new hospital, $12 million for the Clinic and Research Building, and $3 million for the new entrance, lobby, and addition. Leading gifts were received from the Guilds, the Padrinos, and the CHOC Foundation, as well as numerous Orange County corporations. The CHOC medical staff also raised over $800,000, six times what they had contributed in previous campaigns, and over 50 percent of hospital employees made donations to the campaign.

To prepare CHOC for the next generation of health care services, the Children’s Hospital underwent a major corporate restructuring in 1987. Rather than a single board of directors, CHOC became governed by a parent board, CHOCO Health Services, Inc., and four additional boards: Children’s Hospital of Orange County, CHOCO Realty, Inc., Children’s Hospital Foundation of Orange County, and Children’s Hospital of Orange County Thrift Stores, Inc. Diversifying in this manner allowed each board to streamline its operation and to concentrate its efforts on improving CHOC.
The 1980s brought many medical achievements to CHOC. In 1982, the Pediatric Cancer Research Laboratory opened, providing a local facility for critically needed cancer research, followed in 1985 by the Bone Marrow Transplant Laboratory. In 1984, the Apnea Electrodiagnostic Center, the first of its kind in Orange County, began helping patients. The lab is one of the few facilities in the nation offering a comprehensive center for testing, diagnosis, and management of pediatric apnea, a breathing disorder. In 1986, CHOC doctors performed the County’s first bone marrow transplant on Tori Lee Glezos, a nine-year-old patient suffering from malignant muscle cancer. CHOC is now only one of seven hospitals statewide and one of six freestanding children’s hospitals in the nation approved to participate in the National Bone Marrow Donor Program. In 1987, CHOC began use of Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO), a heart-lung bypass procedure used on newborns suffering from potentially fatal respiratory problems. That same year, in May 1987, CHOC started the Home Health Agency, which provides on-going and follow-up care for ill and injured children in their own homes.

During this period, CHOC also became known for its care of multiple-birth infants. On November 21, 1983, Dr. Scott Lederhaus, a neurological resident at the UCI Medical Center, and his wife Janet, a former critical care nurse at CHOC, became the proud parents of CHOC’s first quadruplets: Eric, Jeffrey, Keith, and Kate. All weighed three pounds or less at birth, but were soon doing well with some assistance from CHOC’s NICU team.

The media attention showered upon the Lederhaus quadruplets was eclipsed in May 1985 when Sam and Patti Frustaci became parents of septuplets. It was America’s first septuplet birth in which any of the newborns survived for more than a few hours. Television, radio, and newspapers reporters camped out in front of the hospital, providing national and international around-the-clock coverage of the seven infants. One infant was stillborn, and three of the tiny Frustaci babies, born 12 weeks premature, died within the first 16 days, but eventually Patricia, Stephen, and Richard Frustaci were able to leave CHOC.

The 1980s also saw the start of two new community programs: Kid Safe Saturday (later Protecting Our Kids from Danger) and the annual Kids Care Fair. Started in 1988, Kid Safe Saturday was a daylong fair to teach youngsters how to handle emergency situations like fires, accidents, and encounters with strangers. At the annual Kids Care Fair, CHOC medical staff were onsite to provide immunizations, tests, and screenings and distribute education materials on nutrition, health insurance, literacy, and much more.

CHOC closed the decade by celebrating its 25th anniversary with a bang. For the June 10, 1989 kick-off event, 300 volunteers gathered in the MainPlace Mall parking lot in Santa Ana to create a 150-foot outline of CHOCO Bear. This event was followed by an extravagant 25th anniversary party—“CHOCO’s Birthday Party”—attended by over 3,000 children and parents. CHOC’s first patient, Ken Spicer, now the father of two children, returned to join in the festivities. Other commemorative events included a 1960s themed “California Dreamin” party at CHOC for employees and medical staff in August and an Anniversary Gala Ball at the Disneyland Hotel.

After 25 years, CHOC had many reasons to be proud of its achievements. Orange County’s population had blossomed from just under a million to 2.2 million, and the Children’s Hospital had grown with it. The bed count had gone from 62 to 202, and over half a million children had been cared for by CHOC staff and doctors. Few who attended the 1964 dedication ceremonies would have imagined that the original two-story building would eventually become a hospital complex that now takes up most of a city block.

CHOC ended the decade with yet another highlight when the long anticipated Ronald McDonald House opened on November 9, 1989 on Batavia Street in Orange. Open to the families of hospitalized children, no matter what the diagnosis, this home away from home offered relief to worried family members faced with the stressful and expensive problem of commuting long distances or staying in a motel to be near a hospitalized child. The three-story Orange County Ronald McDonald House provided up to 20 private suites with shared community living, dining, kitchen, and laundry space. Because the House was so close to CHOC, parents were no longer forced to sleep on uncomfortable lobby chairs or cots and eat vending machine food.

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1990-2000
The Years of Growth

The decade of the 1990s opened with optimism and a sudden burst of new Orange County construction. In 1990, a new 338,000-square-foot addition, the Thomas F. Riley Terminal, opened at John Wayne Airport. Construction began on the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim, which opened in 1993 as home to the Mighty Ducks hockey team. Aliso Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita continued to develop. After several failed attempts, voters approved, in November 1990, a half-cent sales tax (Measure M) that would raise $3 billion over 20 years for freeways, toll roads, rail projects, and local street repairs. Funds were used to start improvements on Interstates 5 and 405, the 57 freeway, and the infamous “El Toro Y” interchange in South County. The Eastern Corridor was already under construction, and the Foothill and San Joaquin Corridors would be started in 1991. Disney and the City of Anaheim began building Disney Resort, a $4 billion project which included modifying the existing park, developing a new theme park (California Adventure), and constructing additional hotels, parking structures, and entertainment areas.

By 1991 though, it was apparent that Orange County, like the rest of the nation, was in a severe recession. Worker layoffs began in aerospace, then quickly moved into other industries. New housing declined along with property values. Orange County was hit with another blow when bankruptcy—the largest in municipal history—was declared on December 6, 1994. This action, resulting in the loss of $1.6 billion, shocked residents and the investment community alike, sending the County’s economy into a further tailspin. Through bond sales, Orange County emerged from the bankruptcy 18 months later.

During the 1990s, three new cities were founded. Voters in Lake Forest (formerly El Toro), Laguna Hills, and Laguna Woods voted for incorporation. Laguna Woods, the former gated community of Leisure World, open only to senior citizens, became the state’s only “over 55” city.

The ethnic make-up of cities in the County also continued to change. Santa Ana became home to the largest Hispanic population in Orange County, Garden Grove developed the largest Korean business district in the County, and Westminster housed the largest Vietnamese community. Long a magnet for entrepreneurs, Orange County ranked among the top United States counties in business ownership by Hispanics, Asian Americans, and women.

Although the 1990s were a time of recession, CHOC branched out and flourished. As the hospital moved into its second quarter century, CHOC was building a new hospital, an expanded outpatient clinic, and a new research facility. The building plans that had been made in the mid-1980s came to fruition as CHOC opened one-by-one its sparkling new facilities.

In the fall of 1990, hospital staff celebrated the opening of the new Clinic and Research Building adjacent to CHOC West. In addition to the research facilities, the project nearly doubled existing Clinic treatment space, and included new headquarters for the Pediatric Urgicenter, which provided after hours medical care.

The grand opening and community open house for the new six-story hospital took place on Sunday October 13, 1991 and attracted over 5,000 people. Visitors marveled at the friendly and impressive ultra-modern pediatric medical center, which had been designed from the ground up with the special needs of children in mind. Rather than typical drab hospital décor, CHOC North’s interior featured vibrant colors and a playful atmosphere. Each floor featured a different animal mural that greeted visitors as they stepped off the elevator. Nurses’ stations had low openings in their counters designed so that tiny patients could easily visit with those who cared for them. The highlight of the day though was a parade of present and past patients and their families. Patients carried a balloon with the year they were hospitalized.
It was now time to consolidate the patients in CHOC East and the CHOC Tower into

he new hospital. On November 9, 1991 at 6:00 a.m., David Macklin, a 16-year-old patient from Escondido, was wheeled through the new underground tunnel from the original CHOC East Building into CHOC North. The rest of the move went flawlessly, and by the end of the third day, all of the patients had been successfully transferred to the new building. After years of planning and construction, the dream of a new hospital had become a reality.

As the move into CHOC North was being completed, the final phase of the construction project continued with the demolition of the old CHOC Tower, and building began on the new main entrance, lobby, and five-story wing. The five-year construction project was finally completed on April 5, 1993 when medical personnel and guests dedicated the new front entrance and lobby. The dedication ceremony included encasing a time capsule in the brick walkway near the front entrance. The time capsule, which contains items from employees and patients, will be opened at CHOC’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2014.

As the five-phase building project was nearing completion in 1991, CHOC administrators began discussing plans to expand pediatric services to south Orange County in cooperation with the Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo. Mission Hospital was selected as the site for the new Children’s Hospital primarily because it was identified by area pediatricians as the hospital for sick children. The facility had the largest pediatric floor in the area, including an active NICU, and served as the only trauma center in South County. Its prime geographic location also allowed it to be accessible to all residents of southern Orange County. On July 10, 1993, Children’s Hospital at Mission opened its new facility on the fifth floor of the Mission Medical Tower. Like other CHOC facilities, Children’s Hospital at Mission was designed to make the hospital experience a more comfortable one for both children and their families. The 48-bed facility currently serves as a “hospital within a hospital,” sharing many services with Mission Hospital, while providing health care to families in communities throughout south Orange County, coastal areas, and north San Diego County.

CHOC also celebrated the 1993 grand opening of its first community facility called Clinica CHOC para Niños. Located in the low-income, mostly Latino area of Santa Ana, the 5,000-square-foot facility included a brightly painted mural, kid-friendly examination rooms, and an all bilingual medical staff. By locating the clinic in a poor neighborhood, hospital officials hoped that parents would seek medical attention for their children before they needed more expensive treatment at CHOC’s outpatient clinic in Orange.

In November 1996, CHOC made medical history again when it opened the first emergency room for children in Orange County. CHOC and Saint Joseph Hospital spent $12.5 million to create a combined emergency services center that serves both adults and children.

In addition to its massive building projects, CHOC continued to expand its medical programs, services, and fundraising efforts. In April 1992, CHOC received approval from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for a new independent residency program, and accepted its first group of residents in the summer. That same year, CHOC hosted its first national medical conference. Held at Le Meridien Hotel in Newport Beach, the conference (“A Leap into 21st Century Pediatrics”) featured a keynote address by former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. A few months later, CHOC offered for the first time in Orange County a Safe Sitter program. An intensive training program for adolescents, Safe Sitter explains the basics of babysitting, including first aid, what to do in an emergency, getting kids to bed on time, and how to help a crying child. By 2002, CHOC ranked among the top ten largest Safe Sitter sites in the world. In 1994, a new holiday tradition began: the Annual CHOC Toy Run. Organized by the Orange County Harley Owners Group (HOG) and Orange County Harley Davidson, the event brings in nearly 2,000 toys for children. In 1995, CHOC set up KidWise, a telephone health information line created by the hospital to serve parents and their children. Parents can call the line, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, to discuss the symptoms of their children. The telephone line was later supplemented by the KidWise Health Library, a series of information brochures on a variety of illnesses and treatments available on the CHOC website.

Healthy Tomorrows, one of CHOC’s most successful programs, was also born during this decade. A collaboration between CHOC, the Santa Ana School District, and the Orange County Department of Social Services, the Healthy Services program provides medical van service to uninsured children in grades kindergarten through six. In 1993, the first year of service, one van served more than 2,500 children at nine schools. In July 1998, ten schools and a second van were added, and in 2000, two additional 38-foot vans were added to assist students in the Magnolia and Anaheim City school district. The mobile clinics currently provide services to 35 elementary schools throughout central and north Orange County.

The 1990s also saw the establishment of the Caring K9s pet-facilitated therapy program sponsored by the Animal Health Foundation. CHOC became one of only 50 hospitals in the nation, and the only one in Orange County, to use pets to assist in the recovery of young patients. The therapy dogs and their owners aid children in oncology, and the medical and surgical wards of the hospital, as well as in the physical, occupational, and speech therapy departments. Since 1994, the unconditional affection of these canine volunteers has raised the spirits of sick children and provided needed escape from hospital and treatment routines.
While the 1990s were years of phenomenal growth and outreach, CHOC suffered from financial hardships during the later part of the decade. Massive changes in managed care plans, coupled with the recession, negatively impacted CHOC and other hospitals around the nation. From 1994 to 1998, CHOC patient volume dropped nearly 30 percent while hospital stays increased 35 percent. By 1996, CHOC was losing one million dollars a month, forcing the hospital to begin a series of employee and doctor layoffs. To improve its financial health, CHOC signed an agreement with the Board of Directors at Saint Joseph Hospital in 1997. Under the terms of the agreement, Saint Joseph temporarily assumed management operations of CHOC, which still remained a separate and independent hospital. By 2001, CHOC had regained its financial footing and earned its first profit in five years, and the hospital directors again assumed sole management responsibility for the children’s facility.

The major human interest story of the decade, and the one most closely monitored by the media, was the life-threatening illness of Michelle Carew, the 18-year-old daughter of baseball great Rod Carew. Diagnosed with acute non-lymphacytic leukemia in September 1995, Michelle received medical care at CHOC as her family waged a public campaign to find a suitable bone marrow donor. A public plea by Rod and Marilyn Carew for people to become blood marrow donors resulted in more than 70,000 calls to the National Marrrow Donor Program. When a suitable donor was not found, Michelle received an infusion of umbilical cord blood cells. CHOC first introduced the procedure in February 1995 with five-year-old leukemia patient John Mash, but the cord blood therapy used on Michelle was then a new, emerging treatment for leukemia and other cancers.

Although Michelle did not recover, her bone marrow drive brought public attention to the growing need for registered donors, and increased research interest in blood cord transplants. In September 1996, CHOC received a $5.5 million research grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and became one of a handful of medical facilities selected to form a consortium that would collect, process, store, and distribute blood from newborns’ umbilical cords. After additional fundraising, the Cord Blood Bank and Research Center under the direction of Dr. Mitchell Cairo, Michelle Carew’s doctor, opened at CHOC in 1999.

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The 21st Century

The next decade opened on a jubilant note for Orange County as residents toasted the new century and looked forward to another 100 years of prosperity. There was much to celebrate. The County’s unincorporated areas continued to shrink as new areas voted to become cities. On January 1, 2000, Rancho Santa Margarita incorporated and included the communities of Robinson Ranch, Dove Canyon, Rancho Santa Margarita, Rancho Cielo, Walden, and Trabuco Highlands. Aliso Viejo incorporated on July 1, 2001. These last incorporations brought the city total in Orange County to 34. Although recession and the tragic events of September 11, 2001 were to negatively impact the area a few years later, Orange County’s economy, now the 34th largest in the world, remained strong and diverse.

The new decade finally brought closure to one of the County’s most divisive issues: the reuse of the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. When the federal government announced in 1994 that the 4,700-acre base, the largest Marine facility in the western United States, was to be closed, it began a lengthy battle over how best to reuse the property. The Orange County Board of Supervisors supported construction of a commercial airport, but residents in south Orange County actively opposed the plan, preferring that the property be used for park and recreational purposes. Voters finally settled the issue in March 2002 by repealing the airport land use requirements. While tentative use of the property includes a sizeable park, the ballot initiative guaranteed that an airport could not be built.

By 2002, Orange County’s population had grown to 2.89 million, making it the fifth largest county in the nation. The population increases came exclusively from foreign immigration and births, mostly to Hispanic and Asian parents, as whites left the county. At the present growth rate, the County will top three million by 2004.
As Orange County moved into the 21st century, it was difficult not to notice that the continuous population growth was exacerbating social and economic ills—traffic congestion, rising home costs, the gap between rich and poor—that had plagued Orange County for decades. The 2002 census indicated that 83 percent of residents commuted daily to their jobs in the County. If more road capacity is not provided, Orange County is expected to reach gridlock by 2020. The County’s housing costs kept getting worse, with just 25 percent of households able to afford a median-priced home. Rapid immigration and a fluctuating economy further split Orange County into two worlds: affluent, highly educated subdivisions, and a central core of poor, uneducated but highly entrepreneurial immigrants. The two fastest growing groups of adults in the County are those with college degrees and those with less than nine years of schooling. These dramatic population and economic shifts, especially in the increased number of children living in poverty, will greatly affect CHOC in the next decades.

While Orange County residents were celebrating the new century, CHOC had been a leader in providing pediatric tertiary care for nearly 36 years. Not willing to rest on its past achievements, CHOC began the new century by expanding services into areas of the County where there were still many children with little or no access to medical care. In October 2000, CHOC opened a new pediatric clinic at the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Ana. This clinic was the first free-standing, full-service pediatric clinic in the nation located at a Boys & Girls Club. The idea was born out of a tragedy when an eight-year-old club member died because his family could not afford medical care. The clinic now provides health care to the area’s over 26,000 children—everything from immunization and well-child exams to diagnosing a severe illness and, when possible, providing medication on the spot. In 2005, in collaboration with Healthy Smiles for Kids of Orange County and the Garden Grove Boys & Girls Club, CHOC opened its second facility on a Boys & Girls Club campus. The Children’s Health and Dental Center offers medical, dental and family services to Garden Grove’s underserved population and features a dental residency program through the USC School of Dentistry.

Responding to the tremendous growth in South County, CHOC opened a medical center in Aliso Viejo in 1999 and a second facility in Rancho Santa Margarita in 2001. In 2006, CHOC and Hoag Presbyterian of Newport Beach joined forces to enhance and expand pediatric care and services in the coastal Orange County area. The affiliation will create an expedited system of evaluation and transfer of children and infants with critical illnesses and special needs to CHOC.

In January 2001, the hospital unveiled its CHOC Mobile Safety House (CMSH), a 40-foot long “recreated house” that offers a hands-on training program to teach parents and other caregivers how to implement simple but effective injury prevention techniques in the home. The only program of its kind in the nation, the mobile house reaches 30,000 to 50,000 visitors each year.

In addition to its new facilities and services in surrounding communities, CHOC has, and is continuing to extend its clinics and services at the Orange site. CHOC started the decade with a new CHOC Cancer Institute outpatient clinic that began providing comprehensive outpatient services five days a week to Orange County children diagnosed with cancer. In January of 2000, CHOCO’s Reading Club was introduced. The program is affiliated with the national Reach Out and Read program which promotes the importance of reading, starting as early as six months of age. CHOC's pediatricians discuss reading with all families who visit the clinic, write a "prescription" for reading and give each child a new book after each well-child visit until age six.

In 2002, the CHOC Research Institute was established. The Research Institute brings together scientists and health care professionals from within CHOC and from the community to share in efforts to solve pediatric health problems. In 2000, CHOC also began hosting an annual Research Awareness Day designed to keep medical and scientific professionals aware of ongoing studies and research at the hospital. In 2004, the CHOC Research Institute was one of only five institutions in the country to receive a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to train researchers throughout the world on how to grow and maintain human embryonic stem cells. And in 2005, CHOC, in partnership with UC Irvine, the Children and Families Commission of Orange County and the County of Orange Health Care Agency (Orange County Consortium), was selected to conduct the National Children's Study, the largest and most comprehensive long-term study of environmental effects on child development and health.

In 2004, CHOC introduced a Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit – two dedicated rooms located within the current Pediatric Intensive Care Unit equipped with the most up-to-date equipment and capable of handling in-room surgical procedures for patients too fragile to be transported to a surgical suite. The same year, the CHOC/UCI Asthma Chronic Lung Disease Center opened on the CHOC campus, offering complementary diagnoses, prevention education and treatment to those at highest risk for developing asthma: children ages 0-5.

In 2005, CHOC unveiled the Rainbow Room -- an inpatient hospice room with physical comforts and amenities for families as they spend their final days together -- as part of its palliative care program. And CHOC at Mission, in collaboration with Mission Hospital, was busy with grand opening celebrations of its new Pediatric Operating Pavilion and pediatric emergency facilities, providing child-friendly facilities and amenities for patients requiring surgery or emergency treatment.

CHOC’s most recent onsite developments included the kick-off of Radio Lollipop, an in-house radio station run by volunteers and hospital staff, broadcast through the hospital’s closed-circuit television system, providing music and activities for patients. CHOC is proud to be the only Radio Lollipop location on the West Coast, and one of only three in the entire country. The station went live on September 22, 2006 with the help of Ryan Seacrest, KIIS-FM and The Cheetah Girls.

In early 2007, construction began to build out the hospital’s sixth floor “shell” into a 30-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit with 12 dedicated Cardiovascular Intensive Care beds. The new unit will have its own satellite pharmacy, ultrasound and X-ray equipment, allowing for immediate results and eliminating the need for staff or patients to travel to other areas of the hospital to obtain these services. Also, CHOC’s onsite clinic began renovations to accommodate the tremendous growth in patient volumes and to consolidate primary and specialty care services to a single area, complete with registration and waiting areas, 83 exam rooms, a 16-bed patient observation and infusion unit, cast and X-ray rooms, educational areas, family spaces and more. This expansion allowed for the growth and development of important new programs, including the CHOC Orthopaedic Institute as a fourth center of excellence for the hospital, which launched in February of 2007. The hospital also opened a nine-story staff parking structure to allow for more onsite parking for patients and their families.

CHOC’s medical achievements have also continued to mount. On June 28, 2000, hospital physicians successfully operated on the smallest infant to undergo open heart surgery in Orange County. The baby, two-month-old Sergio Uribe, who weighed only three pounds, ten ounces at birth, would have died without the cardio-pulmonary bypass surgery.

In 2002, CHOC heard the news that it had been ranked by CHILD magazine as one of America’s best children’s hospitals—the only hospital in California to make the Top 25 list. That same year, CHOC celebrated the expansion of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, adding 10 beds to the hospital's license and making the unit the largest in Orange County. CHOC personnel and community members have taken great pride in watching the hospital grow from a two-story building with 62 beds to an advanced regional pediatric health care network serving a pediatric population of approximately 1,200,000 children ages 18 and under.

The year 2003 welcomed significant achievements at CHOC, when the hospital became the first California children's hospital to perform robotic surgery, and the first children's hospital on the West Coast to offer the VitalStim Therapy for the treatment of swallowing disorders. The CHOC Neuroscience Institute experienced an exciting expansion with the opening of the CHOC Epilepsy Center, the first of its kind in Orange County. The same year brought another "first" for CHOC and for Orange County with the addition of the CHOC Breathmobile, one of only five mobile asthma treatment units in the United States. In June of 2007, a second CHOC Breathmobile was added.

In 2004, CHOC became the first facility in Orange County to perform the Sano procedure, a new modification of a technique used in the first of three surgeries to correct hypoplastic left heart syndrome, on a child. The same year, CHOC pioneered a combination treatment therapy for inherited disease, and the first child in Orange County underwent the newly approved enzyme replacement therapy, making him healthier, stronger, and more able to resist the rigors of his needed bone marrow transplant.

The exciting advancements made at CHOC and the stories of compassion found inside the hospital walls attracted The Learning Channel to feature CHOC in a series that aired in 2000, and the network returned in 2004 to film doctors, staff and patients in the Pediatric and Neonatal Intensive Care Units for a second series that aired the following year.

The outpouring of community support at the hospital’s annual CHOC/Disneyland Resort Walk in the Park reached new heights in 2006, as the 16th annual Walk, in its fourth year at the Disneyland Resort venue, became CHOC’s first ever $1.5 million fundraising event with 15,000 participants. The same year, CHOC received a $1 million gift from the Walt Disney Company, the Disneyland Resort and the Cast at Disneyland. The generous donation helped to fund the renovation of the Ambulatory clinics.

In 2005, CHOC experienced even more “firsts” as it reported a successful outcome on the smallest baby in Orange County to receive open-heart surgery and became the first facility in the world to perform a pulmonary resection using robotic surgery, removing the upper lobe of a patient’s lung due to a rare mass. CHOC’s exemplary status as an outstanding children’s hospital was once again confirmed that year by its second consecutive appearance on CHILD Magazine’s Top 25 list. In 2006, CHOC was one of only nine children’s hospitals named to the Leapfrog Groups “Top Hospitals 2006” list. In addition, the Orange County Register voted CHOC and CHOC at Mission the best place to work and the best place to volunteer in Orange County. CHOC and CHOC at Mission were also featured in OC Metro Magazine as one of Orange County’s best places to work.

As CHOC continues toward its vision of becoming a Top 10, premier children’s hospital, it looks back with pride on its contributions to the welfare of the children of Orange County. In 2006, CHOC and CHOC at Mission provided more than $142.9 million in community benefits, with 92 percent being applied to services for the poor and/or medically underserved. CHOC is currently licensed for 202 beds and treats more than 7,500 patients and 100,000 outpatients annually through its clinics and emergency services. During FY06, over 200,000 children came through our doors. Since 1998, inpatient admissions have increased by 92 percent and the average daily census has grown by 104 percent. CHOC offers virtually every pediatric specialty, including cancer, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, endocrinology, genetics, infectious diseases, kidney disorders, metabolic disorders, neonatology, and neurology. CHOC is the only facility in Orange County to perform pediatric open-heart surgery and to provide pediatric bone marrow transplants. In addition, the hospital maintains a residency program that trains tomorrow’s pediatricians, a Research Institute that brings advanced treatment to its patients, and a nationally acclaimed community education department that teaches health and safety to more than 100,000 families every year. Along with hospitals across the nation, CHOC faces major challenges in the future, but it will continue to provide the finest in pediatric care and the latest in teaching and research programs to benefit the children of Orange County well into the 21st century.

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