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Patrick Magoon with a Lurie Children's patient.
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Chicago philanthropist Ann Lurie and Patrick Magoon at celebratory events leading to the opening of the new hospital named in honor of Ms. Lurie's transformational gift.
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For the Kids: Patrick Magoon Leads One of Nation's Top Children's Hospitals

January 24, 2018

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From the Fall 2017 issue of Western: The Magazine for Alumni of Western Illinois University

By Amanda Shoemaker and Brad Bainter

MACOMB, IL -- Patrick Magoon's view from his office window in downtown Chicago is just a bit different than the view he had looking out of the windows of Higgins Hall during his days as a student at Western Illinois University.

The WIU sociology alumnus has devoted his entire professional career to one of the top children's hospitals in the country, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. Over the last 40 years, Magoon has worked his way up and, for the past two decades, has served as the hospital's president and CEO. Under his leadership, the number of children served by the hospital has increased by more than 50 percent to nearly 200,000 a year, and the research funding from the National Institutes of Health has more than quadrupled. The hospital has consistently appeared on the U.S.News & World Report's list of top children's hospitals in the nation and was the first children's hospital in the country to receive the Magnet Hospital designation by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, the most prestigious recognition of nursing excellence.

It was a referral from his high school counselor at Wheeling (IL) High School that led Magoon to Western. But he decided instead to begin his collegiate career at Southern Illinois University's School of Architecture and Construction. After one trimester, he found himself short on funds, so he moved back home. Little did he know, some short-term jobs would ultimately lead him to the helm of a major children's hospital. While at home earning money to return to school, he spent six months on an assembly line at TV Manufacturers of America. His drafting skills soon led him to a position at a private steel mill. After 18 months of working and taking courses at a community college, Magoon finally made his way to Western Illinois University.

"I didn't take your typical route, straight through school. It was more a matter of figuring out what I wanted to pursue and how to finance my education," he said. "The thing I liked most about Western was the culture of learning and the people, the professors who would spend time with you after class, who would invite you to their house for dinner to talk through projects. I didn't see that anywhere else. Western was a good fit for me. In retrospect, it gave me what I needed intellectually and it prepared me well for the development of my career."

Outside the classroom, he worked for the City of Macomb Water Department, where he redrafted the city's water system. He also tied in some agriculture courses to a job at the Jennings Sale Barn, where he tagged and sorted livestock during weekly cattle auctions.

"I was looking for courses to take at the end of my college career to beef up my GPA in order to get into graduate school so I took courses in the School of Agriculture around land use planning," he said. "That really piqued my interest and caused me to start thinking about what I wanted to do in graduate school, so I started looking at urban planning programs."

Figuring out his next step after Western was a fairly simple decision. Magoon knew there were three strong urban planning schools at that time: Berkley, Arizona and the University of Illinois at Chicago. While applying to all three schools, he also applied for a research assistantship, and it was UIC that offered him that opportunity. While there, he was lucky enough to work with urbanologist Pierre deVise, who was the City of Chicago planner. deVise had a strong reputation, so when it came time for Magoon to shop his resume around, it was his work with deVise that garnered the attention of prospective employers.

It was also while at UIC, Magoon came to know a professor whose wife worked in Children's Memorial Hospital's personnel department. From that connection, he learned the hospital was looking for a student to take on their planning projects.

"It was the typical piece of paper with cutoffs at the bottom with the phone number. So I pulled one off. I interviewed and I got the job here and I used that for my master's project and my master's internship," he said.

After completing the internship, Magoon was offered and accepted a job with a regional health systems planning agency in Peoria. But the children's hospital's CEO told him that they had a lot of projects that he could work on and asked him if he'd be willing to stay on for a while. In the end, Magoon declined the Peoria offer and stayed in the Windy City.

"I didn't see myself staying at the hospital when I first started," he said. "I initially worked on long-range planning projects and then got into operational activities, such as overseeing the in-house laundry service."

Before Magoon came on board, the hospital employed 21 people in laundry services, from individuals who dry cleaned doctors' lab coats to seamstresses who repaired surgical drapes, as well as patients' stuffed animals that were torn.

"My responsibility was to outsource that laundry as we were working on an expansion project. It was a delicate balance between the business side of planning and the human side of it," Magoon said. "How do you find new positions within the organization for 21 people, many with minimal education? During that process I learned valuable lessons that are still with me today."

Over time, he picked up more responsibilities within the organization. Years into his professional career, Magoon had reached a point where he was looking for opportunities elsewhere. It was at that time that the hospital CEO decided to leave and the hospital board chair asked Magoon if he would serve as interim CEO.

"I said I'd be happy to do it, but only if I was considered as a candidate for the position," recalled Magoon.

He began his tenure as the interim CEO in November 1997 and took over full responsibility one month later. When Magoon took over at the helm, the hospital was losing about $1.5 million a month.

To turn the business around, Magoon established three simple principles that he believed are inherent in all successful organizations. First is a clear vision and a well-articulated plan to achieve it. Magoon initiated a planning process, engaging board members, hospital leaders and supporters to establish priorities that were mission, market and margin driven. Second is the development of a financial plan to support strategy execution.

"Lastly is the development of a leadership team with a mandate that their actions must be consistent with the culture we wanted to create," Magoon explained. "It took about three years, but we were able to achieve the financial turnaround necessary for the hospital's success."

While Magoon and his team were investing in programs and recruiting talented employees, they ran into a unique situation: the hospital didn't have the capacity to serve the demand. They were routinely refusing transports of children at the Lincoln Park location, which was comprised of about six buildings, one of which was constructed in the early 1900s.

"We quickly realized that it wasn't economical to modify the existing hospital buildings to give them a footprint substantial enough for the demand that was out there," he said. "We had to build a new hospital."
So Magoon entered into a significant planning process with the board. They benchmarked against the best children's hospitals in the country to learn what was different about those hospitals compared to Children's Memorial in Chicago.

"If you looked at the top 10 children's hospitals in the country, most were on the campus of a medical school partner. We were three miles away from our partner and while that may not seem far, it does make a huge difference when you are trying to recruit the best and brightest physicians and scientists," Magoon explained.

They decided the best location for the new hospital was on the campus of their medical school partner Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

"The hospital is the pediatric training ground for Feinberg and our physicians are on faculty there," he said.

Work soon began on a financial plan, which included a $600 million philanthropic campaign. After seven years of extensive planning, the hospital moved to its new building and was renamed Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

"The hospital's new name is in honor of a transformational gift from philanthropist Ann Lurie, whose intention was to facilitate the metamorphosis of a good organization into an excellent one," explained Magoon.

When one walks around the building, Magoon said you can easily see what makes the facility unique, including the fingerprints of civic leaders, cultural institutions and over 250,000 donors who contributed to the campaign.

"What you see in this building is the coming together of that community support and civic pride. It was never really about the building, but the promise of what it represented," he said. "We are able to treat more children and leverage the strengths of the medical school and our institution to recruit specialists such as Dr. Aimen Shaaban, one of the few fetal surgeons in the country," Magoon said. "Being near the medical school and the synergies that creates, we also are able to conduct more cutting-edge research, which allows us to advance pediatric medicine."

Along with a better location on the campus of their medical school partner, Lurie Children's increased its clinical capacity by 30 percent, going from 240 beds to 288 beds currently. Now undergoing further inpatient expansion, the hospital plans to operate 360 beds by Summer 2019.

It took many groups, workers and volunteers to design and complete the new hospital. Magoon enlisted the help of both the kids' and parents' hospital advisory boards to generate ideas of what they wanted to see in the new hospital. The next step was to recruit Bruce Komiske, currently the vice president of new hospital design and construction at Erlanger Health System, to oversee the entire project, including the design.

"Early on, we decided that we wanted to create a unique, child-friendly environment to distract children and adults alike from the stress of coming to the hospital," he explained. "The families and the kids really helped us with that.

"We also engaged the major cultural institutions in Chicago to help create a welcoming and nurturing environment that represents the history and vibrancy of this great city," Magoon said. "As you walk in, you'll see a display of near life-size models of a mother humpback whale and her calf donated by the Shedd Aquarium. Another floor was ‘adopted' by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lookinglass Theatre Company, and patients and guests can view a beautiful exhibit inspired by the production of ‘Peter and the Wolf,' a classic children's story. There is even an actual firetruck, donated by Pierce Manufacturing, modified to be accessible for children of all abilities," Magoon said. "It is truly an amazing place."

Four years of planning to move the children from the old hospital to the new downtown facility came to fruition on June 9, 2012. By law, the Lincoln Park hospital had to remain open as a fully-functional hospital until the very last patient left.

"When we were moving our patients out, people from the neighborhood were standing on the street applauding. It was an incredibly emotional day. You could feel the excitement and energy of the new hospital coming to life. It was also bittersweet to say goodbye to Children's Memorial, where many of us had spent our entire careers," remembered Magoon. "I was so proud of the staff as everyone came together after years of planning to make sure that all our patients were transported safely. It was a momentous occasion."

Over the course of 14 hours on that day in June 126 critically ill patients were successfully moved to the new Lurie Children's downtown location. The city of Chicago also took action. Major buildings in the city changed their lights to blue to welcome the children to the new hospital location, and the Chicago Police and Fire Departments were on hand to help.
So what exactly does it take to run one of the top children's hospitals in the nation? Many hats and a lot of flexibility. On any given day, one can find Magoon working on community relations, strategic planning, philanthropy campaigns, and the next he may be advocating for children's health care in Springfield or Washington, DC.

"When you think about it, our job is really simple. As advocates for kids, we want to clear the road so they have every opportunity to be successful. When we debate the state or federal budget, our decision-making must be guided by what is best for children," Magoon stressed.

As a national leader in advocacy for children's health, Magoon has undertaken key roles in both federal and state arenas on issues such as Medicaid reform for medically complex children, graduate medical education, pediatric research and child safety. He is past chair of the Board of Trustees for the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions/National Association of Children's Hospitals (now called Children's Hospital Association), and past chair of the Board of Trustees for the Illinois Hospital Association.

Looking back on his 40-year career with the hospital, Magoon recalls when he first really "got" what made the place so special.

"While volunteering at the hospital's annual telethon very early on in my career, I asked one of the other volunteers why he was involved that day. He told me that he had a daughter who was treated for a brain tumor at the hospital. While she had passed away, he said this was the one day he could give back to the place where she received extraordinary care and that he looked forward to it every day," Magoon remembered. "His passion was powerful. For me, that was a wake-up call. I realized that to be a part of this organization is an honor and a privilege."

Posted By: University Communications (U-Communications@wiu.edu)
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