Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) is a 700-bed^[1] pediatric hospital located in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is ranked third among all Honor Roll hospitals in the 2019-20 U.S. News & World Report survey of best children's hospitals.^[2] It is home to the country's busiest pediatric emergency department, performs the second largest number of surgical procedures at a children's hospital in the nation, and is Southwest Ohio's only Level I pediatric trauma center. Cincinnati Children's receives the third-most NIH funds of any pediatric institution in the United States. The pediatric residency training program at Cincinnati Children's is among the largest in the country, training approximately 200 graduate physicians each year. Cincinnati Children's is home to a large neonatology department that oversees newborn nurseries at local hospitals and the medical center's own 59-bed Level IV Newborn Intensive Care Unit.

In June 1883, a meeting of women from parish communities around Cincinnati established a mission to create a Diocesan Hospital for Children. On November 16, 1883, the "Hospital of the Protestant Episcopal Church" of the Diocese of Southern Ohio was incorporated.

The original articles of incorporation included the following statement: "This corporation is not created for profit, but will rely for its establishment and support on the voluntary gifts and contribution of the charitable and humane, and therefore is to have no capital stock."

The hospital opened in March 1884 in a rented home in Walnut Hills, a community north of downtown Cincinnati, at the corners of Park Avenue and Kemper Street (now Yale). This building provided for fifteen patients, and within eight months had admitted a total of 38 children. The only patients eligible for admission were aged 1–15, suffering from an acute or chronic disease (or convalescent from such), required medical or surgical treatment. The hospital provided free care, without regard to race, religion, creed or color. The only restriction was that no child with an infectious disease may be admitted.

The small house was inadequate, with only three bedrooms, one small bathroom, and not enough hot water or heat. Generous contributors J. Josiah and Thomas J. Emery came to the rescue. They donated land in Mt. Auburn and built a three-story brick hospital. On November 23, 1887, all patients were transferred from the Walnut Hills location to the new hospital on Mason Street, near The Christ Hospital.

Originally endowed with a fund of $3,506.48 in November 1884, the hospital's endowment had grown to over $85,000 by the turn of the 20th century.

In 1904, a new three-story wing, connecting with the rear of the main building, was built. The addition cost over $20,000 at the time, and included provisions for a large play-room, a chapel and an isolation ward for children with contagious diseases. A new operating room was installed on the top floor of the main hospital at this time, and various other improvements increased the capacity of the hospital at this time to 90 beds.

The 1920s brought dramatic changes while under the leadership of William Cooper Procter, president of the board of trustees, and Albert Graeme Mitchell, MD, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and physician-in-chief of The Children's Hospital. In 1926, the hospital moved to a new 200-bed facility near the College of Medicine and established an academic affiliation with the college. In 1928, William Cooper Procter donated $2.5 million to build and endow The Children's Hospital Research Foundation, which opened in 1931. The hospital entered the decade of the 1930s as an important center for pediatric patient care, education and research—as it continues to be today.

The hospital has been involved in a variety of medical breakthroughs, most prominently Dr. Albert Sabin's development of the oral polio vaccine, which went into use in the United States in 1960.

The hospital served patients from 51 countries and 50 states in fiscal 2018. It recorded 1,281,902 patient encounters, 951,434 outpatient specialty visits, 173,023 Emergency and Urgent Care visits, 83,162 outpatient primary care visits, 34,295 surgical procedures and 46,214 surgical hours. In fiscal 2018, Cincinnati Children's trained 272 clinical fellows, 181 research postdoctoral fellows, and 200 residents. Revenues in fiscal 2018 totaled $2.408 billion, including more than $181 million in research grants. Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center employed 15,755 people in fiscal 2018. The active medical staff totaled 1,503, including hospital-based faculty and community-based physicians.^[3]

Cincinnati Children's vision is "to be the leader in improving child health." For research, Cincinnati Children's receives the third highest awards to a pediatric institution from the National Institutes of Health and is recognized as one of the top three pediatric training institutions in the United States.