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Hospital Amenities

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital combines the best possible medical care with the utmost attention to the entire family’s needs. Among the features that make this hospital a special place are:
  • A window-seat bed in hospital rooms for a parent to spend the night 
  • Unlimited visiting hours for parents, siblings and family members 
  • Cooking and laundry facilities for parents 
  • Family support by social services professionals, language interpreters and chaplains 
  • Recreation therapy and on-site school programs for patients and siblings 
  • A library with recreational books for children
  • Health education resources for parents
  • A closed-circuit television system broadcasting special programs for children in the hospital
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Family-Centered Care Program

Families who have already been through transplantation help families who are facing this long and difficult process. Families attend training and discussion sessions on the following topics:
  • Before transplant 
  • Transplantation 
  • Becoming a partner 
  • Helping during painful procedures 
  • Navigating the insurance maze 
  • After transplant 
  • Family plan for the transplant 
  • Evaluation 
  • Family plan for care
The Family-Centered Care Program helps families develop strategies for coping with aspects of hospitalizations, transplantation and health care partnerships. Ongoing contact with parent mentors and Family-Centered Care resource specialists teaches families how to implement and modify their strategies.

For more information, contact the Family-Centered Care Program.

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Where to Stay

For families coming from outside the Bay Area, the Ronald McDonald House provides temporary housing within walking distance of LPCH while the child recovers from transplant surgery. Our social worker can assist with other short-term living arrangements to make the family’s stay as comfortable and worry-free as possible. The Stanford Shopping Center is within walking distance of both the Ronald McDonald House and LPCH. Free public transportation is available through Stanford University, making most of the Palo Alto area easily accessible.

More lodging and dining information is available in the For Patients and Visitors area of this Web site. 

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Insurance and Financial Assistance

For assistance with insurance questions and financial assistance, please contact Penny Rodgers at (650) 497-8008. Additional information is also available in the For Patients and Visitors area of this Web site.

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Useful Links

You can find additional information about kidney transplantation at these Web sites:
  • The American Association of Kidney Patients publishes a free four-phase booklet series educating patients and families about end stage renal disease (ESRD).

  • The American Kidney Fund provides grants for needy kidney donors and recipients. 

  • Want a highly visual medical textbook that provides excellent detail on kidney function and disease? Try the Atlas of the Diseases of the Kidney.

  • Children’s Organ Transplant Association (COTA) works with families to launch fundraising campaigns to finance the life-long costs of transplants.

  • Kidney Patient Guide, a U.K.-based source, provides a great deal of helpful information for kidney patients and their families in plain, easy-to-understand language. 

  • The National Foundation for Transplants provides patient advocacy and financial support services to transplant candidates.

  • The National Kidney Foundation offers e-mail discussion groups for patients, including one for parents of children with kidney disease, and it provides grants for needy patients. The group has a local branch in San Francisco (415-543-3999). The site also provides Internet-based aids for the practice of medicine focused on the kidney (nephrology). Created for physicians and nephrology professionals, this site offers access to in-depth technical information about transplantation as well as other areas of nephrology. 

  • National Organization for Rare Diseases, Inc. (NORD) represents patients and families with rare diseases, including those that affect the kidney. 

  • National Transplant Assistance Fund (NTAF) helps families launch and sustain a grass-roots fundraising campaign, alleviating some of the financial concerns associated with transplant.

  • The North American Pediatric Renal Transplant Cooperative Study (NAPRTCS) hopes to register and follow greater than 80% of the children receiving renal allografts in North America.  They also hope to study the clinical course and natural history of patients with renal dysfunction and to continue following these patients as they move among the end-stage renal disease (ESRD) therapeutic modalities, thus allowing the NAPRTCS to become a complete ESRD patient data system.

  • Transplant Recipients International Organization, Inc (TRIO) brings support, awareness, education and advocacy to those involved with organ transplant.

  • United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) administers the National Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) and the US Scientific Registry under contracts with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health | Stanford University School of Medicine | Stanford Hospital & Clinics