St. Christopher's Hospital for Children was established in 1875 to provide health care to the children of North Philadelphia. Despite our name, the hospital and residency are not affiliated with any religious group.

St. Christopher's historical accomplishments include a long list of innovations in the medical care of children. In the 1880s, it opened a ward for sick infants. The hospital also created a transport service in the 1890s and a Handicapped Children's Unit in the 1940s.

Though the hospital has since become a major referral and teaching center, the care of children in this inner-city neighborhood remains an important aspect of the St. Christopher's Pediatric Residency Program.

In recent decades, St. Christopher's has become one of the nation's leading children's medical centers. With a 161-bed inpatient capacity, each year the hospital treats more than 160,000 children on an inpatient, outpatient, or emergency basis.

The hospital is now located on a 7.5 acre medical campus in North Philadelphia, which includes an acute-care hospital, an adjoining ambulatory care pavilion housing physician offices and outpatient clinics, a teaching and education center, a medical office building, research laboratories, and space for future growth.

St. Christopher's is now a major regional center for children with end-stage renal disease and complex congenital or acquired heart disease. The hospital's operates a pediatric solid-organ transplantation program (kidney, liver, heart and heart/lung). St. Christopher's also operates one of the only burn centers for children between Washington D.C. and Boston. Also in 2004, we received a two-year re-accreditation as a Pediatric Trauma Center, one of three in Pennsylvania.