New Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford opens its doors Dec. 9
The expansion more than doubles the size of the existing pediatric and obstetric hospital campus. With the new building, the hospital will have 361 beds and can serve more patients than ever before.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Nov. 30 at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford to celebrate the completion of the hospital’s new main building.
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Over a decade in the making, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford will open its new main building and grounds on Dec. 9.
Designed to transform the patient and family experience, the new 521,000-square-foot building more than doubles the size of the existing pediatric and obstetric hospital campus. The new building adds 149 patient beds for a total of 361 on the Palo Alto campus, enabling the hospital to serve more patients than ever before and allowing it to deploy awaited renovation plans for the existing hospital building.
Patient move day takes place on a Saturday, when the weekly census is at its lowest. More than 100 pediatric patients will be moved from the existing hospital (now called the west building) across to the new main building and into new acute patient care units and pediatric and cardiovascular intensive care units.
“Hundreds of staff have prepared for months and months for this day, when this new building becomes part of our working hospital,” said Christopher Dawes, president and CEO of the hospital and Stanford Children’s Health.
To run the new building, the hospital hired more than 500 new staff members in positions ranging from nursing to food and housekeeping service roles.
Ongoing construction
The exterior of the new main building.
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According to Dawes, the patient move day marks a significant milestone, but it is one of many to come over the next several years as construction continues on parts of the main building and awaited renovations kick off in the west building. Within the west building, design plans are currently underway for renovating the existing Johnson Center for Pregnancy and Newborn Services to create the Bay Area’s premier mother and baby center, including a brand-new postpartum unit and a redesign of the neonatal intensive care units. By the end of 2018, all obstetric postpartum beds will be converted into private rooms.
The Bass Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Diseases, which includes an inpatient unit and an outpatient infusion center, will stay in the west building while its future home on the fifth floor of the main building is under construction. A new space dedicated to the Betty Irene Moore Children’s Outpatient Heart Center is also under construction on the main building’s first floor. Both new centers are slated for completion in 2019.
A complete look at the new hospital is available in the fall issue of Stanford Medicine magazine.
Stanford Medicine integrates research, medical education and health care at its three institutions - Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Health Care (formerly Stanford Hospital & Clinics), and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. For more information, please visit the Office of Communication & Public Affairs site at http://mednews.stanford.edu.
