4. Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston
Current Research studies: 795
Cutting-Edge Treatments: Identified the entire series of genes responsible for an increasingly common strain of staph infections that are resistant to often-prescribed antibiotics, paving the way for the development of more targeted treatments; was selected as the only U.S. training    center for the Berlin Heart, a mechanical device that may be implanted in children who are waiting for a heart transplant; and developed a technique to reduce the time it takes to perform one type of scoliosis surgery by more than an hour, thereby reducing complications. 

Compassionate Care: Provides DVD players and video game systems in every patient room; a playground with a wheelchair-accessible swing; classes to prepare kids who have a sibling in the NICU; and teen and preteen playrooms.

Community Focus: Set up a pediatric clinic in the Astrodome, which in 12 days treated more than 3,000 children who were victims of Hurricane Katrina; established three “medical homes” in low-income sections of Houston where children can receive free checkups and immunizations and be registered for nominal- or no-cost health insurance; and trained 40 technicians to check car seats. They performed more than 2,700 inspections in 2005.

Eighteen months into Cody Pendley’s battle with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, he reached the lifetime cap on his health insurance. For Cody’s medical bills to be taken care of, his parents, Deedy and Michael, faced a harsh decision. “We could abandon our child and he would become a ward of the state, so we’d have no say in his care; we could get divorced, and Mike would care for our other kids and I could claim abandonment, making Cody eligible for Medicaid; or we could put Cody in a state-funded nursing home,” Deedy recalls.    

For three days they agonized, and Deedy wouldn’t leave Cody’s room at Texas Children’s Hospital: “Even though his body didn’t work, his mind did, and Cody had definite preferences, like he loved Elvis tunes and hated country music,” says Deedy. “He was a sweet-natured, happy child I absolutely adored.” Just as the couple was making plans to liquidate a small retirement account and sell one of their cars—a move that may have bought them another couple of months — a financial counselor from the hospital stepped in. “He told me that the hospital’s charity committee would cover Cody’s bills for the rest of his life,” recalls Deedy. “We were able to care for him at home, and I even got some nursing help, until he passed away surrounded by our family and friends when he was 4 years old.”

In the midst of Cody’s care the hospital gave her another gift, she says: “In conjunction with Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s finished mapping the human genome, and now doctors are able to tell what gene defect was responsible for Cody’s condition and whether my other children are carriers. They’re going to be tested when they’re older,” she says.

5. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
Current Research studies: 1,076
Cutting-Edge Treatments: Analyzes genetic codes to determine which seizure medication is best suited to an individual child; reduced the rate of hospital-acquired infections in babies on a ventilator more than sixfold from 2004 to the first seven months of 2006; and identified a protein that could be used to predict whether patients receiving kidney transplants need dialysis within the first week of surgery.    

Compassionate Care: Provides knitting, scrapbooking, and ice cream socials for families; a clinical concierge nurse to coordinate outpatient appointments to multiple departments; and the largest palliative care program in our survey, caring for 600 kids in 2005.

Community Focus: Has established a comprehensive weight-management program for kids as young as age 5; improved the percentage of children with chronic illness who receive a flu shot from 17% in the 1999–2000 season to more than 60% four years later; and runs the Psychiatric Intake Response Center to quickly link at-risk children to mental health services.

When Amy and Dan Witzigreuter learned that their newborn son, Paul, needed a liver transplant because he had a rare congenital condition that blocked the flow of bile from his liver to his gallbladder, causing rapid scarring of the organ, the family was at their local children’s hospital. “The doctors didn’t have a set time every day when they did rounds, so you couldn’t plan to be there, and when a physician would order a medication it commonly took hours to be added to the treatment plan. We were fed up,” says Amy.

Then the couple did some research of their own and found out that Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center performs about 24 pediatric liver transplants every year and that nearly 90% of the patients undergoing the procedure are still alive three years later. Surgeons gave Paul part of Amy’s liver when he was 7 months old and he’s doing well now. “They took great care of Paul, and they also took great care of my older kids,” she says, “helping them create books and pictures to express their feelings.” 

6 Columbus Children’s Hospital, OH
Current Research Studies: 655
Cutting-Edge Treatments: Was the first U.S. hospital to use gene therapy to treat a child with a form of muscular dystrophy; is working on a vaccine to prevent ear infections; and is home to the Center for Injury Research and Policy, a program that identifies causes of injury-related deaths and disabilities in kids and offers practical suggestions for preventing children from getting hurt.

Compassionate Care: Provides sleeping accommodations for parents in 93% of patients’ rooms; a supervised sibling clubhouse for brothers and sisters of patients; an expanded family resource center with laundry, fitness, and kitchen facilities; and plush dolls for children having an interventional procedure in the ER.

Community Focus: Offers a child-abuse prevention and treatment program; successfully lobbied for state legislation that allows moms to breastfeed in public; and offers free smoking-     cessation classes for teens.

Last January around 6 p.m., doctors walked into 3-month-old Jason Wolfe’s room in the transplant unit of Columbus Children’s Hospital to talk to his parents, Michael and Maria. It was Friday the 13th, and despite the date’s reputation for being unlucky, doctors told the couple they had found a donor heart and lungs for their son, who just after Christmas had been diagnosed with a severe case of primary pulmonary hypertension—a condition that prevents a normal amount of blood from flowing into the lungs and caused Jason to crash more than a half-dozen times in the two weeks prior. But there was one more detail the doctors still had to mention.

Across the hall from Jason was 2-month-old Kayla Richardson, who was diagnosed at birth with a congenital heart defect and required a heart transplant. Both families had met each other in the hallway — they had even talked briefly—but on this day they would be tied together forever. Says Maria: “The doctors asked us if we’d be willing to donate Jason’s heart, which was only being replaced because it’s much more difficult to transplant lungs alone in a small infant, to a little girl in the hospital.”

The little girl, the Wolfes immediately realized, was Kayla. “The doctors weren’t finished asking the question before my husband and I were   nodding yes,” she recalls. And so, a “domino” transplant — the only one attempted in the U.S. in the last 10 years — was performed. First, a team of doctors removed Jason’s heart and lungs and replaced them with the new organs. And then Kayla received Jason’s heart. Kayla is doing well, the hospital reports. “Jason has exceeded all expectations,” says Maria. “He’s shown no signs of infection or rejection. He crawled at 9 months and is going to start walking any day now.”

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