Happy 20th Anniversary

Still Growing

A rendering of the Packard Children's Hospital expansion

Recent milestones in the hospital’s growth include building the state-of-the-art Ford Family Surgery Center, the Bass Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases, and a new Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit. An expansion scheduled for completion in 2017 will add 521,000 square feet and 104 new beds to the current 311 beds. The growth is allowing the hospital to meet increasing demand for its programs and maintain its service-oriented approach.
 
That approach includes Family-Centered Care – helping families to make informed decisions about their children's care – and forming strong relationships with pediatricians who refer patients to Packard Children's. It also includes giving kids opportunities to be kids – for instance, by encouraging growth and development through Recreation Therapy & Child Life activities, and supporting patients' education through the Palo Alto Unified School District’s hospital school.
 
"We tell patients, 'You are not your disease. You are a child or adolescent who happens to have an illness that you have to integrate into your life,'" Sandborg said.
 
 

Bench-to-Bedside Science

In 2005, Jerrick De Leon became the youngest and smallest baby ever to undergo an arterial switch procedure.

Packard Children’s next 20 years will bring an accelerated synergy between clinical care and scientific research. It’s an exciting future built on historic breakthroughs in many fields:

• Solid-organ transplant: Packard Children's physicians developed ways to avoid steroids – and their heavy side effects – for post-transplant patients. Next up: Developing less-invasive methods for monitoring transplanted organs.
  
  
• Cardiovascular care: The Children's Heart Center has refined pediatric heart transplants and advanced cardiovascular surgery for tiny preemies. Now the team is researching ways to grow personalized replacement heart valves for babies.
  
  
• Neonatology: Our neonatologists invented now-standard LED phototherapy units to treat jaundice in newborns. And Packard is advancing care for mothers and babies with complex prenatal diagnoses in our new Center for Fetal and Maternal Health.
  
  
• Cancer: Our oncologists developed a protocol to reduce graft-versus-host disease, a potentially fatal complication of the stem cell transplants used to treat hematologic cancers. And, as more children survive cancer, our physicians are studying how to minimize the long-term effects of cancer treatments.

This trajectory of research will allow the hospital to carry out Lucile Packard's original vision for meeting children's needs for years to come.
 
Packard Children's President and CEO Christopher Dawes summarizes it best: "We’ve seen amazing advancements and growth since day one,” said Dawes. "We’ve increased access and breadth, seen quality and expertise improve, and expanded our education and research programs.”
 
And for the future? “We will continue to be a hospital of innovation,” said Dawes. “The importance of our work creates passion among people, and in the end, that’s what makes us so successful.” 
 
 
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