Charity Spotlight: Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital

by Amanda Brandon

In 1919, Stanford University founded the Stanford Home for Convalescent Children. The Home became the Children’s Hospital at Stanford in 1970.

David and Lucile Packard donated $40 million to establish a new children’s hospital in 1986. Mrs. Packard passed away before construction started on the facility in 1988. The new children’s hospital was named in her honor the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

Once separate from the other Stanford hospitals and clinics, the LPCH joined Stanford Health Services in 1997. The hospital is located about 40 miles south of San Francisco in the Palo Alto area on land owned by Stanford University.

Six hundred-fifty faculty physicians and over 4,750 employees and volunteers care for babies, children, teens and expectant mothers every day at LPCH, a 264-bed non-profit hospital. Annual patient discharges average over 13,000 with over 78,000 days of inpatient care per year. Clinic visits totaled nearly 106,000 in 2006, and over 5,000 babies are born each year at LPCH.

The LPCH was built with a “healing process” design. Twenty-seven gardens and outdoor areas, including a rooftop nature area adorn the facility. To instill a nurturing environment for the sick children treated at LPCH, nurses’ stations are designed so that little ones can see the staff through half-moon shapes in the counters. A recreational therapy area gives patients and families a place to forget about being sick. This area is declared a “safe zone,” where no medical treatment occurs.

The healing doesn’t stop inside the walls of Children’s Hospital at Stanford. LPCH has a very active community outreach program which includes a traveling health team that offers immunizations and physical exams to youngsters in the community. Other outreach activities include participation in the Santa Clara/San Mateo SAFE KIDS Coalition; a free hotline service for parents and children and various health education classes.

The Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health supports many patient services through fundraising and donations each year. Patients without insurance or services not covered by insurance are funded through the Foundation.

In addition to the support offered to the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, the Foundation issues grants to promote the health and well being of children through partnerships with organizations in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties Other funding goes to providing public information and education that bring awareness to children’s health issues.

In 2006, the Foundation raised $20,548,369 in revenue for the programs it supports.

Please visit the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health website to help support the needs of children in the Santa Clara/San Mateo areas at www.lpch.org or call (650) 497-8141.