Established in 1926, it is the first full-service children's hospital in the Pacific Northwest, and provides full-spectrum pediatric care.

In 1998, Doernbecher built a new state-of-the-art medical complex to replace the original hospital.

[4] Construction of the six-story[2] hospital in 1925–26 was financed primarily by a donation from a charitable trust managed by the heirs of Frank Silas Doernbecher (1861–1921), a prominent Portland businessman who established the Doernbecher Manufacturing Company in Portland in 1900.

[5] Frank Doernbecher had stipulated in his will that the money, which amounted to $200,000, be given "to some charity for the benefit of the people of Oregon".

[7] The hospital's original name was the Doernbecher Memorial Hospital for Children, and from the start it was part of the University of Oregon Medical School,[7] which in the 1970s became Oregon Health & Science University.