The Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year by linking history with new commitments to expansion and cutting-edge medical care. Highlights of the past two decades range from surgical innovations to greater community outreach, all in the context of plans that will allow for additional initiatives in both treatment and disease prevention.
Growing and Improving
Expansion plans call for more than 500,000 square feet of new facilities, scheduled for completion in 2017 as part of Stanford's medical center renewal project. They include the addition of 104 beds to the existing 311, along with surgical, diagnostic and treatment rooms.
Breakthroughs
Advances in both technology and avant-garde procedures stand out. Two examples:
The Center for Advanced Pediatric and Perinatal Education (CAPE), opened in 2002, is believed to be the world's only simulation training program dedicated solely to the pediatric and obstetric sciences.
In late 2008, orthopedic surgeon Lawrence Rinsky replaced a 3-year-old patient's cancer-ridden humerus (the long bone of the upper arm) with a custom-engineered artificial bone—a first-of-its-kind operation on a child that young.
Community Focus
The hospital's beginnings were rooted in a $40 million donation from David and Lucile Packard. Over the last 10 years, administrators say, the evolution of services has led to almost $1 billion in community benefits including charity care, subsidized below-cost reimbursements and education of medical personnel.
Fighting Childhood Obesity
Packard and Stanford researchers last year won a $12.7 million, seven-year grant to design a pediatric weight-control program as part of the National Institutes of Health multi-university Childhood Obesity Prevention and Treatment Research program.
By the Numbers
For fiscal year 2010
- Medical staff: 770 (faculty plus fellows)
- Employees: 2,747
- Patients treated (children plus women): 61,162
- Pediatric emergency admissions: 13,557
- Inpatient days: 81,830
- Outpatient clinics visits: 140,353
- Surgical procedures (operating or ambulatory): 6,187
- Births: 4,574
