Alberta Children's Hospital /

Alberta Children's Hospital (ACH) is the largest public hospital for sick children in the prairie provinces, and is located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is operated by Alberta Health Services - Calgary Health Region. The new facility opened on September 27, 2006 and is the first free-standing pediatric facility to be built in Canada in more than 20 years. It is located west of the University of Calgary campus grounds and just across from the site of the Foothills Medical Centre. The Alberta Children's Hospital was designed with substantial input from young patients, as well as families, physicians and staff of the hospital. In 2002, architects created renderings of how the hospital could look; a multi-storey brick building. These drawings were brought to the hospital's Teen Advisory Group (TAG) and changed substantially into a colourful building closely resembling toy building blocks. The idea for the Alberta Children's Hospital was to create a building that would reduce stress and promote healing. The interior of the hospital has been designed to enable the delivery of family centred care. The hospital includes supports for families such as sleeping facilities for parents in