Forbes features Packard Children’s: From community care to a top-ranked children’s hospital

Treatment for patients at the Stanford Home for Convalescent Children in the 1930s included fresh air and sunshine.

When the Stanford Home for Convalescent Children opened in Palo Alto in 1919, we could never have imagined the transformational medical advancements that would occur over the next century. This week, Forbes features the evolution of pediatric care at Stanford and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford’s steadfast strategic leadership in “A ‘Mother’s Vision’: Building and Scaling a Premier Children’s Hospital.”

Children from the Stanford Home for Convalescent Children play various musical instruments as part of a band in the 1930s.

Reflecting on the growth of the convalescent hospital into the Children’s Hospital at Stanford, which opened on Sand Hill Road in 1970, to the opening of Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford in 1991, to our expansion in December 2017, Forbes reports:

Packard Children’s has a strong record of high performance in all elements of strategic leadership, and countless sick children, their families, and their communities are the fortunate beneficiaries of that achievement. The hospital also stands out for its record of scaling up effectively, and the new state-of-the-art building is a testament to its pursuit of growth with purpose.

As described by Forbes, this achievement is due in large part to Susan Packard Orr, longtime philanthropist and daughter of the hospital’s founder, Lucile Salter Packard; and the hospital’s former president and CEO, Christopher Dawes, who served at the helm of the organization for more than two decades. Orr explained to Forbes:

Through the amazing network that Chris Dawes developed, Packard Children’s has been able to scale its impact in an outsized way, disproportionately greater than the size of its organization and physical plant.

Hospital founder, Lucile Salter Packard

Amidst the hospital’s growth, Packard Children’s has remained dedicated to the founding vision of Lucile “Lu” Salter Packard.

Lu had conceived of a hospital that would nurture its young patients’ body and soul, treating them not only as patients, but as kids, and giving the same stellar standard of care to every child, regardless of a family’s ability to pay – and that’s what Packard Children’s became.

For more from Forbes, also see: ‘Unparalleled Leadership’: Lessons From The CEO Of A Top Children’s Hospital.