Floating at a Glance

Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center is a full-service pediatric teaching hospital, which has provided caring and expertise for more than a century. Family centered care is the philosophy that guides the 128-bed Floating Hospital, which began in 1894 as a hospital ship, sailing Boston Harbor and encouraging mothers to participate in their children’s health care decisions. Now anchored permanently in modern buildings in downtown Boston, the hospital offers a comprehensive range of services from prevention and primary care to the treatment of rare and unusual conditions, serving infants through young adults in a personalized environment.

Floating Hospital offers state-of-the-art pediatric inpatient and ambulatory services in every medical specialty, and can accommodate critically ill infants and children in its Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), a Level-III Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) or at the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute, the first U.S. trauma center exclusively for children. In addition, affiliations with community hospitals and physicians around Boston allow the Floating Hospital’s pediatric specialists and surgeons to make their expertise available in numerous satellite specialty programs for children in outlying areas.

Milestones

ca. 1911: First hospital-based human milk collection for sick babies

1919: First artificial milk product invented, later successfully marketed as Similac

1940: The first children’s playroom in a Boston hospital is established as part of a program to apply recreational therapy to counter the effects of hospitalization

1963: Family Participation Unit established, allowing parents to stay overnight with their children

1981: World’s first pediatric trauma center established