It is a teaching hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.

Major Institutes within the Shanghai Children's Hospital include: Shanghai Institute of Medical Genetics, Shanghai Children's Health Care Center, Shanghai Children's Emergency Center, Shanghai Newborn Screening Center, Shanghai Children's Rehabilitation Center, SJTU Congenital Urogenital Malformations Surgery Disease Diagnosis and Treatment Center and the SJTU Respiratory Infectious Disease Diagnosis and Treatment Center.

Clinical Departments include: Intensive Care Unit, Neonatology, Nephrology and Rheumatology, Respiratory, Hematology, Gastroenterology, Cardiology, Neurology, General Surgery, Cardiovascular Disease, Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Urology, Otolaryngology, Children's Health-care, Dermatology, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Stomatology.

The hospital was founded in 1937 as the Underprivileged Children's Hospital (Chinese: 上海难童医院), by doctors Fu Wenshou (富文寿; W. S. Fu) and Su Zufei (苏祖斐).

[1] During World War II, when large numbers of European Jewish refugees fled to Shanghai, the hospital, under Superintendent Dr. Fu, provided treatment to sick children and pregnant women free of charge.