Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is the largest provider of pediatric hospital care in California and the state’s largest pediatric safety-net provider. The hospital accounts for nearly 40% of pediatric beds in Los Angeles County and treats 46% of the county’s children who require complex care, as nearly 75% of its patients are covered by Medicaid. The hospital has been named to U.S. News & World Report‘s honor roll for best children’s hospitals for 17 consecutive years and ranks among the top 10 children’s hospitals nationally for National Institutes of Health research funding, supporting nearly 600 active clinical trials through its Saban Research Institute. This year marked the hospital’s 125th anniversary. CHLA operates one of the largest complex pediatric cardiac surgical programs in the country, as well as one of the first and largest pediatric CAR T-cell therapy programs, offering the most comprehensive portfolio of FDA-approved cell and gene therapies on the West Coast, with 12 such therapies currently available. In April 2026, CHLA launched the Chuck Lorre Pediatric Health Education Institute, a first-of-its-kind program expected to train more than 12,000 health care professionals over the next two decades. CHLA leads the nation in pediatric liver transplant outcomes, posting the best one- and three-year survival rates in the country, and in 2025 its surgeons performed a transplant on a 2-week-old infant, as well as synchronous liver transplants on two pediatric patients using portions of the same donated liver. The hospital also opened a new cardiac imaging suite featuring low-field MRI technology, a first for a pediatric hospital in the U.S.
