This is the highest level of distinction for hospitals that perform complex surgical procedures in newborns, children and teens. Children’s Wisconsin is the highest-rated pediatric surgical center in Wisconsin.

The ACS designations we have earned reflect our proven record of adhering to the most rigorous standards in surgical quality and our commitment to minimizing complications, improving outcomes and saving lives.

As an ACS Surgical Quality Partner, we’re committed to the highest standards of surgical care. This designation reflects our proven record of adhering to the most rigorous standards in surgical quality — to minimize complications, improve outcomes and save lives.

We participate in the following programs:

• Children’s Surgery Verification (CSV): The CSV program ensures that every verified hospital meets the needs of pediatric patients. This specialized care provides improved outcomes, improved safety protocols and a standardized quality of care across the many crucial facets of children’s surgery.
• NSQIP Pediatric: The first and only international database measuring performance outcomes across multiple specialties of children’s surgery, the program helps hospitals provide efficient and equitable care and shortens a patient’s time in the hospital.
• Trauma Quality Improvement Program (TQIP): TQIP ensures that a hospital has acquired the strongest surgical data to analyze and improve patient outcomes. This is critical because trauma patients often have little choice in where they receive care.

In 2025, Children’s Wisconsin earned the highly coveted Magnet Recognition Program® status for the fifth consecutive time from the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Magnet designation is granted every four years to those organizations that demonstrate sustained excellence in nursing care.

What makes this fifth Magnet designation especially exciting is that it validates the quality and standards of care in all areas where nursing is practiced at Children’s Wisconsin: our Milwaukee and Fox Valley hospitals, specialty and primary care clinics and community and school-based nursing environments.

Children’s now joins the ranks of an elite group of health systems across the globe.  Fewer than 3% of health systems worldwide have received Magnet designation, with just 80 organizations  — less than .5% — achieving this honor five times.

Magnet status is the highest level of formal recognition for nursing excellence and is considered the gold standard for hospitals. Children’s Wisconsin in Milwaukee was one of the first pediatric hospitals to achieve this status when it first achieved Magnet designation in 2004.

Children's Wisconsin has been named a Top Workplace by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel every year since 2010. Being recognized for more than five years places Children's Wisconsin in the Top Workplaces Hall of Fame.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's annual Top Workplaces program recognizes Milwaukee-area businesses based on employee surveys. Companies are measured by employee feedback on several qualities including company leadership, career opportunities, workplace flexibility, compensation and benefits.