Charity Spotlight: Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego

by Amanda Brandon

Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego is the area’s only medical center dedicated to the care of children. Also the region’s only pediatric trauma center, Rady Children’s opened in 1954 with a mission “to restore, sustain and enhance the health and development potential of children through excellence in care, education, research and advocacy.”

Rady Children’s has developed from a 59-bed hospital in 1954 to a 248-bed health system today. The system has 15 neighborhood centers offering primary care and specialized services. The hospital also offers outreach in health education, early intervention and counseling, child abuse prevention and programs for child safety issues.

The health system provided care for 142,754 sick or injured children last year. 13,712 visits to the hospital were for inpatient care, and 207,672 were outpatient and specialty clinic visits.

Child Magazine rated Rady Children’s Hospital in the top 25 children’s hospitals in the country in 2007. They also ranked the Orthopedic Care Center at Children’s in the top five pediatric orthopedic departments in the United States. The program is known for excellence in pediatric care for conditions ranging from scoliosis and arthritis to hip, knee and foot injuries. The Orthopedic Care Center treated 45,195 youngsters last year.

Rady Children’s provides care at all levels of specialty, but they also help children deal with serious illnesses and hospitalization in two ways – physicians and staff specifically trained to care for pediatric and a “healing environment.”

The Healing Environment

The healing environment includes technology and care that is aimed at helping “kids get and stay healthy.” They use a “combination of design, light, color and art” to create this environment. The child and his or her family become part of the healing process in this environment.

Music, art and storytelling make up part of the four-part healing environment.

The music therapy program began in 1995. Performers include a harpist, an African drum presentation, a guitar player/singer and sign language performance duo, and music therapists from a program called MusicWorx. MusicWorx is a clinical training site for degreed music therapists working on their national board certification. 

The art program includes one-on-one projects and group painting sessions with artist Eduardo Parra. Mentors through the ARTS (A Reason to Survive) program provide art supplies and different projects each week in patient rooms and activity rooms. The ARTS mentors also conduct workshops for siblings and special events. A volunteer-run mobile art program called Art for Life: Art While You Wait provides projects for patients and families waiting in the Emergency Department.
On-staff and volunteer storytellers provide comfort for patients at the bedside and in group activity rooms. A bilingual storyteller, Linda Whiteside, regularly tells stories from Mexican and South American books and folk tales to patients and families.

Design is a major part of the Rady Children’s healing environment. The hospital’s main building, the Rose Pavilion was designed with kids in mind. The roof has six pitches to make the hospital look like six houses in a neighborhood. Kid-specific features include vaulted ceilings with twinkling stars, nursing stations designed to look like little houses, kid-sized windows, and ceiling lights shaped like dominos. Interactive artwork and healing gardens complete the healing environment.

About the Rady Children’s Hospital Foundation

The Rady Children’s Hospital Foundation started in 1985. The founding purpose was to consolidate and enhance the fundraising efforts for the hospital. Another goal of the foundation is to increase community awareness and to promote Rady Children’s strategic priorities.

In 2006, the Foundation added the Rady family name to Children’s Hospital of San Diego for their generosity to the nonprofit health system.

Governed by a Board of Trustees who are elected by the Rady Children’s stakeholders (past and present hospital administration and the most generous donors), the trustees serve a term of two or more years. Elections are held each here at the hospital’s annual meeting. The Rady Children’s Foundation is currently led by William R. Hamlin, Jr.

Total revenue for the foundation in 2006 was just over $59.5 million. Charity Navigator gives Rady Children’s it’s highest rating at four stars for its efficiency in fundraising. For more information on the Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego or the Foundation, visit www.chsd.org.

We encourage you to also explore all the different ways to make a Planned Gift to Rady Children’s. In addition to creating long-term benefits to the children in our community, you may also find substantial tax benefits.
If you’d like to speak with any of our Major and Planned Gift officers, please Contact Us or call (858) 966-5804.