2008 Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Report

Dear Friends,

Here at Packard Children's Hospital, we treat pregnant women and some of the most acutely ill children from Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, the entire Bay Area, and across the country. Many are children too sick or too small to be treated elsewhere. 

Christopher Dawes, President and CEO, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital

Thanks to our exceptional physicians and staff, we achieve some of the best outcomes in the country. And because of our accomplishments in quality and safety, the demand for our services has never been higher, frequently exceeding our capacity. 

In 2008, we unveiled designs for the expansion of Packard Children's, marking an exciting milestone in advancing our Hospital's plans for the future. Our new facility will be a remodel and upgrade, completely integrated with the current facility, with the capacity and technology to meet the needs of the growing communities we serve. 

We have taken a long and thoughtful approach to determining how we can best deliver care in this new design. The expansion will be a dramatic demonstration of our commitment to family-centered care, leadership in medical innovation, and training the caregivers of tomorrow. 

When it is complete, the new Children's Hospital will create an environment that enables our outstanding multidisciplinary care teams to continue to excel in the treatment and care of our patients and their families. Thank you, once again, 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

• Hugh O'Brodovich, MD, joined our team as the new Adalyn Jay Physician-in-Chief of the Children's Hospital and the Arline and Pete Harman Professor and Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine. An expert in pediatric pulmonology, he formerly led Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children. 

• Packard Children's launched a new web site (quality.lpch.org) that allows visitors to access a variety of data about the Hospital's performance. This move toward greater data transparency is another milestone in an ongoing effort to advance patient safety and quality of care. Packard is the first children's hospital in California, and one of only a few in the country, to voluntarily report clinical quality outcomes.  

• The Care-A-Van for Kids department at Packard Children's celebrated the success of 10 years of continuous community service to families who need transportation to hospital appointments. In that time, the dedicated people who drive the program's seven vans have volunteered more than 12,500 hours, driving 3,300 patient families over 400,000 miles to and from medical appointments.  

• The Hospital's Comprehensive Eating Disorders Program expanded to treat young adults ages 18 to 21, offering treatment to older adolescents and college students. Packard couples the longest continuously running inpatient eating disorders program in the Bay Area with an outpatient program that coordinates medical and psychiatric treatment. Through the years, the program has helped thousands of patients.  

• Packard was recognized once again for being one of the finest pediatric medical centers in the country. In the annual U.S. News & World Report ''America's Best Children's Hospitals'' issue released in June, Packard was rated the best in the Bay Area, and recognized as a national leader in specialties such as neonatology, cardiology, heart surgery, and cancer.  

• Packard Children's and Stanford University launched the 'Recent Advances in Autism Treatment and Research' conference--aimed at sharing the latest in autism research with the families of affected children. Hundreds of family members, caregivers, and teachers of children with autism had a unique opportunity to hear from clinicians and researchers on the front line of the challenging disorder.  

• The West Coast's preeminent pediatric surgical center--the Ford Family Surgery Center--opened, providing Packard with dedicated state-of-the-art surgical facilities designed specifically for children. The seven new operating rooms offer the latest in imaging and communication technologies, allowing surgeons to operate with unprecedented precision, speed, and efficiency.