2. Children’s Hospital Boston
Current Research Studies: 751
Cutting-Edge Treatments: Reconstructed defective bladders of kids using their own cells, marking the first time tissue engineering has rebuilt a complex internal organ in humans; successfully operated on 22-week-old fetuses diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (a condition in which the left side of the heart is underdeveloped and can hold very little blood), paving the way for surgeries after birth to go more smoothly; and detected abnormalities in the brain stems of babies who’d died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), which may lead to a test to determine infants at risk for the disease. 

Compassionate Care: Provides a “Puppy Pre-Op” clinic, where kids are prepared for a procedure by watching a stuffed animal go through it; a supervised outdoor playground; Big Apple Circus clowns; one of the nation’s oldest pediatric palliative (end-of-life) care programs; and free meals for breastfeeding  mothers. 

Community Focus: Runs one of the U.S.’s most comprehensive pediatric obesity clinics;   distributes free bike helmets in schools; and successfully advocated for the creation of a statewide pediatric mental health commission.

It had been five months since Alyson and Michael Rolfe’s first child, Charles, was born. From tests done during the pregnancy at Children’s Hospital Boston, the couple knew their son would have gastroschisis, a condition that causes the intestines to develop outside the body. They also knew he would be in for a long struggle and need many surgeries. But they had a harder time coming to terms with the fact that the liquid feedings he was receiving through IV lines — what’s known as total parenteral nutrition — were keeping him alive and killing him at the same time. These feedings were the only way Charles could get nourishment, but they were harming his liver, as they do to 60% to 80% of babies who receive them. In Charles’s case, the damage was severe. “The transplant team from the hospital came to talk to us, and I wanted nothing to do with the transplant,” recalls Alyson. “I had been at the hospital long enough to see how kids who receive transplants suffer.”

But what was the alternative? Three years before Charles was born, a physician at the hospital, Mark Puder, M.D., had been trying to figure out why the feedings caused liver damage. All his results pointed to the type of fat in the formula. Few of his colleagues believed that could be the case, but Charles’s physician was one of them. “Charles’s doctor asked me to ‘save his baby.’ I told the Rolfes that if Charles was given a formula that contained more omega-3 fatty acids than the one he was receiving, he might improve, but he also could remain the same or even die,” says Dr. Puder, who needed special approval from the government to use the experimental formula. 

With Charles’s health declining daily, the couple took the chance — and the government approval came through. After a week, there were signs that it was working. After a month, his liver began functioning normally. Since then, Dr. Puder has treated 29 other infants with the omega-3 formula; two have died of unrelated conditions and the rest have improved. Says Dr. Puder: “The nurses on the floor thanked me that they don’t have to go to as many funerals anymore.” 

3. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta
Current Research Studies: 668
Cutting-Edge Treatments: Established the Center for Pediatric Outcomes and Quality to study practices that may reduce medical errors and determine which treatments for specific   conditions are most effective in children; designed a cushion-like device to simulate crawling and build upper-body strength in infants with spina bifida and other conditions that impede motor skills; and is refining a gene therapy that may in the next decade cure hemophilia A, a disorder that can cause internal bleeding with the slightest bump.

Compassionate Care: Provides a floor-wide party for a patient’s birthday; pet-assisted therapy; a Mardi Gras costume party complete with fun floats (decorated red wagons); and  massages for parents.

Community Focus: Gives training to school nurses; developed a physical-exam form to better identify high school athletes at risk for sudden death on the field from undiagnosed heart problems; joined with the state to boost immunization rates in Atlanta; and successfully lobbied for a state law to ban smoking.

Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Graham was pulling a rabbit out of a hat when James Tally, Ph.D., president and CEO of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, first saw her. “She was entertaining the younger kids in the cancer ward with poise and charisma,” he said. “I asked her how long she’d been doing the magic show, and she told me she got the kit last night. That’s when I thought, ‘This kid really is magic.’”

Over the next year or so, Dr. Tally often went to visit Jennifer, who had leukemia, and talk to her family. But she summoned him the day she found out that her cancer couldn’t be cured: “She told me that she had been saving money for college by babysitting and working odd jobs, and that she wouldn’t need it anymore. She wanted to give the hospital her savings, and she wanted me to tell her how her donation could be used. She decided to use the money to redecorate a room in the nearby Ronald McDonald House.”

Since her death over a decade ago, the hospital has stepped up its oncology research and now enrolls 91% of its eligible cancer patients in a study. Dr. Tally’s inspiration: “I look at Jennifer’s picture on my bookcase every day I come to work.” 

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