Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is ranked in the top 5 Children’s Hospitals in the United States.
Here, the most sick, most seriously injured children from all over the world are treated. As one of only five pediatric Level I Trauma Centers in California, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles serves over 62,000 patients each year in the emergency room alone.

29 outpatient clinics serve over 287,000 patients per year, with those patients and their families waiting for many hours in the hospital’s waiting rooms and public areas.  11,000 patients per year are admitted to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles’s inpatient units, where they are treated by a multi-disciplinary team comprising nearly 100 subspecialties.

The Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Artists Program provides art and music workshops throughout the hospital, including waiting rooms, inpatient community spaces, and at bedside.

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is a non-profit hospital which provides approximately $1.5 million annually in “charity care” – that is, losses incurred from patients who are under-insured or un-insured but still receive life-saving treatment.  The majority of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles’s patients are insured by the state of California under the MediCal or Healthy Families programs.  This basic insurance covers medical necessities, but art therapy, music therapy, and other creative arts and alternative therapies are not paid for.

Research is showing that incorporating creative arts and expressive therapies in a medical environment can help with physical, mental, and emotional healing. HARK helps to make it possible for these services to be provided.