About Us: History

Our story begins in October of 1995, when Loyola's Children's Hospital was officially accredited as a full-service children’s hospital by the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions. The recognition underscored the leadership role that Loyola had assumed in pediatric health care and research, as well as the significant scope and quality of its pediatric programs.

Institutional membership in the National Association of Children's Hospitals is reserved only for those facilities that offer teaching and research as part of their mission. With its longtime relationship with Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, the Children’s Hospital met that criteria, and its integration with the medical school continues to this day.

In October 1996, Loyola received $10 million from Ronald McDonald® House Charities to support children's health care at Loyola University Medical Center. Subsequently, the Children's Hospital was renamed the Ronald McDonald Children's Hospital of Loyola University Medical Center to reflect the commitment of Ronald McDonald House Charities and its mission of "lifting children and families to a better tomorrow."

Today, our hospital includes an impressive main facility with Loyola's 50-bed inpatient unit, with 14 intensive, 16 intermediate, and 20 routine care (8 of which are private/isolation), a 50-bed neonatal intensive care unit, which serves as a national model in the care of high-risk infants and one of the region's largest burn centers, to which children are transferred from throughout the Midwest. Our additional locations throughout the Chicagoland area service extended communities, providing world-class outpatient pediatric care.

As the only hospital to bear the Ronald McDonald Charities name, the Ronald McDonald Children’s Hospital of Loyola is proud to provide family-centered compassionate care in a state-of-the-art setting.