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2007 Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Report
Dear Friends,
I am pleased to share with you highlights from another year of exceptional achievements at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
In 2007, we gained national recognition on numerous fronts--a landmark study that showed the powerful influence of fast food marketing on the eating habits of young children; the historic separation of conjoined twins, Yurelia and Fiorella Rocha-Arias; and continued ranking as one of the nation’s best children’s hospitals.
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Christopher
Dawes, president and CEO,
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital |
At the same time, we maintained our mission of caring first and foremost for local children and families, and expanded our reach into surrounding communities through programs such as the Teen Health Van, the Safely Home car seat fitting station, a new school nursing initiative, and a new South Bay clinic. We continued to see steady increases in the number of both inpatients and outpatients, the vast majority of whom are Bay Area residents.
The Breaking New Ground campaign, launched by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health last spring, has moved forward with great momentum, raising $230 million toward its goal of $300 million. We have submitted to the City of Palo Alto our plans for a major facilities expansion, which the campaign will enable us to make into reality over the coming years. We are deeply grateful to the many generous donors who have stepped up to help equip Packard Children’s for future success in caring for our community’s children and families.
Finally, I am personally delighted to welcome Hugh O’Brodovich, MD, the new Adalyn Jay Physician-in-Chief of Packard Children’s and the Arline and Pete Harman Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Stanford School of Medicine. Dr. O’Brodovich is a dedicated pediatrician who is exceptionally qualified to lead the Hospital and Department into this next stage of growth. I look forward to his partnership in making Packard Children’s an ever more effective place for the children and families who need our specialized care.
Thank you for your extraordinary role in making all of this possible.
Sincerely,
Christopher G. Dawes
President and Chief Executive Officer
Lucile Packard Children's Hospital
Highlights
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U.S. News & World Report once again ranked Packard Children’s as the #1 pediatric hospital in California and one of the top 10 nationwide. We were especially proud to be recognized in 2007, as the ranking was expanded to include data about hospital performance and quality of care. Previously, it had been based solely on reputation.
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The Child Health Corporation of America honored Packard Children’s with the 2007 RACE for Results award for our success in implementing Rapid Response Teams. By actively intervening at the first sign of trouble in hospitalized children, instead of following the industry standard of cautiously watching and waiting, the teams helped decrease cardiac arrests and mortality rates across the entire Hospital.
- A study led by Thomas Robinson, MD, director of Packard’s Center for Healthy Weight, showed that even young children are swayed by brand preferences. Asked to sample two identical foods from McDonald’s, children ages 3-5 said the items branded with the restaurant’s familiar ''Golden Arches'' were tastier than the ones wrapped in unmarked paper packaging.
- A new school nursing project jointly funded with the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health will restore full-time nursing to four San Jose schools with large populations of students from low-income families. The goals of the five-year, $2.65 million grant to the San Jose Unified School District are to improve health services in the schools and to ensure that students have regular medical care through a school health clinic.
- Children in the South Bay who have asthma, acne, abdominal pain, and many other conditions can now receive care closer to home at our new South Bay Specialty Center in Los Gatos. The center houses 13 pediatric subspecialties in a child-friendly setting with all the hallmarks of Packard Children’s.
- Our Children’s Hospital has become even more kid-friendly since the launch of Packard Kids Connection, a new website for children ages 5 to 12. Located at http://kids.lpch.org, this playfully animated, bilingual site is filled with interactive games and demonstrations to help children prepare for a hospital visit and learn what to expect during tests and treatments.
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In November, a team of two dozen Packard surgeons, physicians, and nurses beat the odds and successfully separated Fiorella and Yurelia Rocha-Arias, 2-year-old twin girls conjoined at the chest and abdomen. Many months of careful preparation pre-surgery, followed by close monitoring and intensive therapy post-surgery, paid off: the sisters returned home in February and are expected to live normal, healthy lives.
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