Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital Celebrates 100 Years of Premier Pediatric Care

Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital is celebrating its 100th birthday with leaders marking a century of pediatric care excellence and service to children throughout the Intermountain West by renewing their Primary Promise to keep the ‘Child First and Always’.

“We’re excited for the opportunity to celebrate the many remarkable milestones we’ve achieved during our first 100 years, and the opportunity to renew our Primary Promise to put ‘The Child First and Always’ for the century to come,” said Katy Welkie, RN, MBA, chief executive officer of Primary Children’s Hospital and vice president of Intermountain Children’s Health.

“Together, we’ll continue working to improve the health of children, strengthen our quality of care, address emerging health needs, and extend our expertise to those who need us most,” she said. “What an exciting future ahead for Primary Children’s and the future of the children and families we are fortunate to serve.”

Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital has grown from an act of compassion for one child, to delivering premier pediatric care to 100,000 children a year, regardless of their ability to pay.

The hospital launched in a home near Temple Square and soared into a multi-campus care network spanning 400,000 square miles across the Intermountain West. Its services have grown from orthopedics and chronic disease care to treating the most complex child injuries and illnesses, from organ transplants to in-womb and open fetal surgeries with University of Utah Health.

“Primary Children’s Hospital saved not only my life as a child, but my child’s life more than once,” Utah mother Sara Mainor said. “The specialists may help one child at a time, but it’s so much more than that. Through their expertise, they help entire families, and the communities those families are part of — and in the case of me and Nellie, who has a one-in-a-million disease, generations of children to come.”

Mainor recalls being at Primary Children’s as a child, when doctors successfully removed a tumor from her brain. Her 12-year-old daughter, Nellie, recently received a kidney transplant after years of daily dialysis treatments – all while leading several fundraisers to help her fellow patients.

“Primary Children’s nurses and doctors have become like a second family to me,” said Nellie, who at age six was diagnosed with the rare dense deposit disease. “I love the people who helped me, and I’m glad they have done the same for thousands of other kids. Happy birthday, Primary Children’s!”

Hospital Built For Children, By Children
Primary Children’s Hospital was inspired by Louie B. Felt and May Anderson, officers of the Primary Association, the children’s program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who were touched by the sight of a child on crutches struggling along a city street.

Realizing the need for special medical help for children, the Primary Association sponsored the treatment of 72 children in a children’s ward created at LDS Hospital in 1911.

In 1922, the Primary Association opened the first Primary Children’s Hospital at 40 W. North Temple, across from Salt Lake City’s Temple Square. The hospital mainly served children with orthopedic and chronic diseases, and who needed convalescent care following surgeries at LDS Hospital, which resulted in an average six-month stay.

“We believe we have a sacred responsibility to care for children,” said Camille N. Johnson, Primary General President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Caring for the children includes providing for their physical needs, which this hospital and its dedicated professionals and volunteers have done so beautifully for the last 100 years. We look forward to another century of tender and thoughtful care provided by this wonderful center.”

Primary Children’s Hospital was made possible by philanthropy, including Pennies by the Inch, in which Latter-day Saint Primary children donated pennies each birthday, and annual Penny Parades held in hundreds of Intermountain area towns and farming districts.

When the hospital needed an update in 1938, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints President Heber J. Grant responded. Local business leaders had given him 1,000 silver dollars for his 82nd birthday. He donated the coins for the hospital’s construction, and each silver dollar was made into a paperweight and sold for $100.

After World War II, the Primary Association launched “Dimes for Bricks,” and invited residents to contribute 10 cents to purchase one red brick for the new hospital.

In 1952, the new 70-bed Primary Children’s Hospital opened at 320 12th Avenue in Salt Lake City. Half the $1.25 million cost was paid through these fundraisers, making Primary Children’s in large part the hospital built for children, by children.

Intermountain Healthcare Brings New Opportunities
In 1975, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints created the independent, nonprofit corporation Intermountain Healthcare, through which its hospital holdings, including Primary Children’s, were gifted to the community.

In exchange, the Church charged Intermountain to become a “model health system,” providing affordable, accessible, and extraordinary care.

In 1977, the hospital became the teaching hospital for the University of Utah School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics, paving the way for research, innovation, additional pediatric specialties and life-saving technologies to help children survive and thrive.

“The partnership with the University and Primary Children’s has led to the research and novel treatments for children that once stretched the imagination,” said Angelo Giardino, MD, chair of the University of Utah Health Department of Pediatrics and chief medical officer of Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital.

In 1990, Primary Children’s moved to its current 289-bed facility on the University of Utah campus next to the School of Medicine. The Primary Children’s Eccles Outpatient Services Building opened in 2014 to accommodate patients’ growing needs.

Into the Next 100 Years: A Primary Promise to the Child First and Always
Today, Primary Children’s provides more than 60 medical and surgical pediatric specialties with more than 800 physicians and 3,000 caregivers. It provided $14 million in charitable dollars to cover 11,867 patient visits in 2020 alone.

Its specialty care now is available in clinic locations, partner community hospitals, and via pediatric telehealth in Utah, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, and Montana locations, bringing expert pediatric care to children closer to home.

Hospital inpatients receive music, dance, and art therapy, and enjoy toys, crafts and games in a spacious Forever Young Zone and Sophie’s Place, where they can heal through the power of expression and play.

Visits from world-renown actors, artists, athletes, and leaders, including President George H. W. Bush, Jennifer Garner, Farah Fawcett, Arnold Palmer, Mickey Mouse, Robert Redford, the Dalai Lama, Star Wars’ BB-8, and Sabrina Carpenter, continue to cheer patients during their hospital stay.

Families can find rest and refreshment in two in-hospital Ronald McDonald Family Rooms.

The new Grant Scott Bonham Fetal Center in the hospital’s new north tower provides multi-specialty fetal care and surgeries to unborn children and their mothers and families in close partnership with University of Utah Health.

The most fragile infants are cared for in a state-of-the art newborn intensive care unit. Later this year, children with cancer will receive expert care in upgraded healing spaces and infusion areas more accommodating to childhood and family needs.

Primary Children’s in 2020 began building a second hospital campus in Lehi, Utah, on the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Campus to address growing needs in the area in the decades to come. The hospital will feature five floors, 66 beds, and a three-story medical office building, with a combined 486,000 square feet. It is expected to open in 2024.

The Miller Family Campus is part Intermountain Healthcare’s “Primary Promise” vision to create the nation’s model health system for children – just as its founders intended.

“As a pediatric critical care physician who trained at Primary Children’s Hospital, I’ve seen firsthand the amazing care provided to each child,” said Marc Harrison, MD, president and CEO of Intermountain Healthcare. “I’m proud to have been part of Primary Children’s first 100 years and look forward to the next century of advancements that will help children live healthier lives.”

Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital Milestones
1922 – First Primary Children’s opens in a converted house across from Temple Square
1924 – Most commonly treated illnesses are infantile paralysis, osteomyelitis, and tonsils; patients traveled to the hospital from six western states and Canada
1952 – Primary Children’s moves to a 70-bed facility on 12th Avenue in Salt Lake City
1968 – Primary Children’s begins offering pediatric psychiatric services
1971 – First Festival of Trees raises $47,000 for charity care
1977 – Primary Children’s becomes the teaching hospital for the University of Utah School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics
1979 – Air transport (soon to be named Life Flight) begins, bringing 232 children across 20,000 miles to Primary Children’s in its first year
1982 – Newborn ICU is a test site for the high-frequency jet ventilator, which proved successful in saving tiny premature babies
1984 – Cardiac balloon pumping for children pioneered at Primary Children’s
1991 – “Hold On To Dear Life” injury prevention program begins, credited boosting kids’ car seat and seat belt usage by 17 percent the first year
1991 – President George H. W. Bush and Louis Sullivan, MD, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, visit Primary Children’s Hospital
1996 – Primary Children’s successfully separates conjoined twins from Honduras
1996 – Primary Children’s completes first liver transplant
1997 – Utah’s first living, related-donor liver transplant performed on 9-month-old girl at Primary Children’s
1999 – Primary Children’s becomes the first children’s hospital in the country, and the first hospital in Utah, to adopt digital medical imaging
2002 – Hospital achieves the highest-level certification Level I Pediatric Trauma Center, the only one in a five-state region
2007 – First antibody therapy administered in the Primary Children’s cancer center
2014 – Eccles Outpatient Services Building opens
2015 – First Car-T therapy administered at Primary Children’s
2017 – Primary Children’s ranked in all 10 Best Children’s Hospitals specialties measured by U.S. News and World Report
2019 – Primary Children’s Center for Personalized Medicine announced
2020 – Construction begins on a second Primary Children’s in Lehi on the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Campus
2021 – First pediatric ECMO transport performed
2021 – First open fetal surgery performed with University of Utah Health
2024 – Second Primary Children’s hospital to open on the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Campus in Lehi

NOTE: Historical images and video available upon request.

About Intermountain Healthcare

Headquartered in Utah with locations in eight states and additional operations across the western U.S., Intermountain Healthcare is a nonprofit system of 33 hospitals, 385 clinics, medical groups with some 3,900 employed physicians and advanced care providers, a health plans division called SelectHealth with more than one million members, and other health services. Helping people live the healthiest lives possible, Intermountain is committed to improving community health and is widely recognized as a leader in transforming healthcare by using evidence-based best practices to consistently deliver high-quality outcomes at sustainable costs. For more information and updates, click here