The Memphis and Shelby County region supports numerous hospitals, including Methodist and Baptist Memorial health systems, two of the largest private hospitals in the nation. Methodist Healthcare system operates seven hospitals as well as several rural clinics; it is the largest healthcare provider in the Mid-South. Modern Healthcare magazine recently ranked Methodist Healthcare among the top 100 integrated healthcare networks in the nation. Baptist Memorial Healthcare operates 15 hospitals, three of which are within the city of Memphis, including Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women, one of only a few freestanding women's hospitals in the nation. For nine consecutive years (1996-2004) Mid-Southerners have named Baptist Memorial Hospital–Memphis their "preferred hospital choice for quality" according to Health Care Market Guide 's annual studies. Memphians point with pride to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, a premier research/treatment facility for children with catastrophic diseases, particularly pediatric cancers. The institution was conceived and built by the late entertainer Danny Thomas in 1962 as a tribute to St. Jude Thaddeus, patron saint of impossible, hopeless, and difficult causes. Recent research at St. Jude's has focused on gene therapy, bone marrow transplant, chemotherapy, the biochemistry of normal and cancerous cells, radiation treatment, blood diseases, resistance to therapy, viruses, hereditary diseases, influenza, pediatric AIDS, and the psychological effects of catastrophic diseases. A billion-dollar expansion to double the size of St. Jude's and bolster its research facilities is well underway and parts of it will be completed and functional in early 2005: the new GMP building, an on-site facility for research/production of highly specialized medicines and vaccines; the Integrated Research Center, with a Children's Infection Defense Center; and an enlarged Immunology Department. Further expansion will include a new Integrated Patient Care and Research Building. Shelby County has more than 100 specialty clinics, including the nationally known Campbell orthopaedic center, Semmes-Murphey Neurologic and Spine Institute, and Shea Ear Clinic. Memphis has two mobile intensive care units providing prehospital emergency care.