This children’s medical center has ambitious plans to become one of the nation’s most renowned pediatric care providers.

On a sticky Memphis summer day in 1952, an outspoken woman the local press referred to as Mrs. Howard Pritchard stood in front of the city’s first children’s hospital with a bundle of bulbous helium balloons in one hand and a shiny key in the other.

Mrs. Pritchard was the president of Le Bonheur Club, a volunteer women’s organization that got its start in 1923 as a sewing circle dedicated to making clothes for orphaned children. Over the years, the club’s membership grew, and the organization eventually put down its needles and thread and began focusing on the healthcare needs of the children they helped clothe. When the Memphis Pediatric Society came calling in 1944, Le Bonheur responded and actively began raising funds for a proposed $2 million hospital dedicated to children.

Eight years later at the grand opening ceremony, Mrs. Pritchard took the key to the hospital’s front door and tied it to the helium balloons. “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,” Pritchard said. With that, the balloons were released and Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center’s doors were open.

Today, Le Bonheur is still making good on Pritchard’s promise, and more families and their children are walking through the 225-bed hospital’s doors than ever before. That’s why the organization has an ambitious plan to expand its campus to nearly 1 million square feet, and an even more ambitious vision.

“Le Bonheur has a dynamic vision for the future to become one of the nation’s top children’s hospitals,” said David Stevens, chairman of the hospital’s capital campaign, said in a statement. “We have an obligation to provide the finest pediatric hospital in the country, and to make sure that our children are receiving the best healthcare available.”

The plan
By 2005, Le Bonheur had outgrown its facilities. The medical center saw more than 130,000 children from 47 states and was among the 10 busiest pediatric emergency departments in the nation. That same year, the hospital unveiled its comprehensive renovation and expansion plan.

The $327 million plan calls for a new 12-floor, 204-bed hospital, which will be located adjacent to the current campus, as well as extensive renovations to its original site. Slated for completion in 2011, the medical center will feature cutting-edge facilities and equipment and innovative programs and services for the entire family.

“Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center has a vision to become a nationally renowned children’s hospital,” president and CEO Meri Armour said in a statement. “To reach that goal, Le Bonheur must provide the best in state-of-the-art medical facilities and programs, as well as outstanding support services and amenities for our patients and families.” That family-centered model is a big part of what makes Le Bonheur so successful today, and it’s something the organization plans to continue to build on as it strives to become among the very best in the nation. Through a partnership with FedEx, Le Bonheur will build The FedEx Family House, the first facility to provide housing for families of patients receiving extended care at the medical center.

The 25,000-square-foot home will feature 25 sleeping rooms, kitchen and dining facilities, indoor recreational space, a small business center, and a fitness room. Financial support for the project will come from a $2.3 million donation from FedEx, as well as personal donations from its senior level executives, including executive VP and CFO Alan Graf.

“For more than 50 years, children from around the world have received exceptional care at Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center,” Graf said in a statement. “We believe this donation will improve the lives of children and their families and reinforces Le Bonheur as one of the leading children’s medical centers in the country.”

Bench to bedside
Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center is also seeking to build on its state-of-the-art care and research programs. Through a close working relationship with the University of Tennessee and a commitment to using the latest medical technology, the medical center seeks to embody the philosophy of bench to the bedside.

An example of this philosophy at work can be found at Le Bonheur’s Neuroscience Institute. Recently, the organization became just the third pediatric medical center in the country to install a magnetocephalography (MEG) laboratory. MEG technology will allow physicians to map children’s brains to better understand and treat neurological conditions such as autism, epilepsy, and brain tumors.

“The MEG will help us see more precisely where the abnormal electrical discharges associated with seizures come from and enables us to provide this important service on our campus,” Dr. Rick Boop, medical director of neurosurgery, said in a statement.

Such innovative treatments will be open to even more children and their families when the organization completes its expansion and renovation project in 2011. And just as Mrs. Pritchard promised in 1952, Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center’s doors will always be open to those in need.