It's been nearly 25 years since the doors opened to the first patients at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford on June 10, 1991. After a quarter-century of serving kids and families from across California and around the world, the hospital's staff are celebrating the lives they've saved and the pioneering advances they've enabled.
A recent story about the hospital's history provides a few highlights from the many notable breakthroughs:
- launch of the first mobile clinic program in America specifically targeting underserved adolescents
- development of a nonsteroidal, immune-suppressing drug regimen for organ transplant recipients
- open-heart surgery on the youngest and smallest infant ever to undergo such an operation
- groundbreaking improvements in pregnancy and newborn care
- leadership in preterm birth research
- pioneering food allergy research
- studies focused on eradicating disease for children around the world
- recognition as being No. 1 in the United States in solid organ transplant volume
The anniversary also starts a countdown to the 2017 launch of a huge new hospital expansion:
“Major advances in patient care mean that more children today are living into adulthood with serious and chronic diseases that would have been fatal 15 to 25 years ago,” said Christy Sandborg, MD, pediatric rheumatologist and professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine. “There’s an increasing demand for more space to care for these kids and families.”
That’s why the hospital will début a new centerpiece for the pediatric and obstetric medical campus — a $1.1 billion expansion, adding 521,000 square feet of building space and 149 patient beds — in the summer of 2017. The project will create the nation’s most technologically advanced, family-friendly and environmentally sustainable hospital for children and expectant mothers.
The next 25 years promise much more growth in the trajectory inspired by hospital founder Lucile Salter Packard. As hospital president and CEO Christopher Dawes puts it in the story, “Lucile Packard inspires our past, present and future, and we think she’d be very proud of everything we done.”
Previously: "I opened the doors:" A look back at two special babies, The spark of a cancer revolution and "Delivering hope" at Packard Children's Hospital
Photo of 1991 opening celebration courtesy of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford
