Fall 2018
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Quality officers Lane Donnelly and Karen Frush.
Steve Fisch
Quality of care
Patients may get a bit apprehensive when they’re planning a stay in the hospital, but Lane Donnelly and Karen Frush want local residents to know they’re in good hands when they come to Stanford Medicine.
Donnelly, MD, is the chief quality officer for Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, and Frush, MD, is the chief quality officer at Stanford Health Care. Both hospitals have been repeatedly ranked among the best health care providers in the nation by U.S. News & World Report and other organizations. One of the key factors in these rankings is the quality of care the hospitals deliver.
Both hospitals have earned reputations for providing the highest levels of care to the most acute patient populations in the nation, and Donnelly and Frush say they are working with their teams to build new quality initiatives on the hospitals’ strong foundations.
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A ballot initiative that jeopardizes health care
In the Nov. 6 election, Palo Alto and Livermore residents will be asked to vote on an extremely misleading ballot initiative that purports to control health care costs in our communities. In reality, it would have the opposite effect.
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Why you should VOTE NO on Measure F and Measure U
Here are some facts about a ballot initiative known as Measure F in Palo Alto and as Measure U in Livermore.
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How Stanford research is making MRI scans safer for children
When it comes to medical imaging, pediatric radiologist and biomedical engineer Shreyas Vasanawala knows that kids aren’t the same as adults.
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Private rooms for all patients at Stanford’s new adult and children’s hospitals
The private rooms in the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford expansion and the new Stanford Hospital have been designed to improve patient safety, promote healing, and enhance the patient and family experience.
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Ten years and four diagnoses later, patient gets her life back
By the time she was 24, Rachel Hale was on her fourth diagnosis and had been on headache medication for years. Then she met with Ian Carroll, MD, a headache and orofacial pain specialist at Stanford.
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Google Glass helps kids with autism understand faces
Wearing a device that identifies other people’s facial expressions can help children with autism develop better social skills, Stanford research has shown.
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30 years of medical education for low-income teens
More than 700 students, 30 summers, zero tuition: The no-cost Stanford Medical Youth Science Program helps aspiring low-income teens begin their journey toward careers in the medical and health sciences.
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‘Voices of the Community’ mosaic project enters final months
Thousands of drawings are being collected and will be assembled into a digital mosaic that will depict the new hospital that will open in 2019.
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Upcoming events for the community
A roundup of health-related events in the coming weeks.
SOUND BITES
"It’s not sterile expanses of white walls. We’re trying in every way we can to not have it feel like a hospital."
Mary Leonard, MD, professor and chair of pediatrics, on the new main building for Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital .
Boston Globe, Aug. 11
“These glasses are perfect for something like this, they’re able to provide real-time feedback.”
Dennis Wall, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics, on his research that found an app connected to Google Glass could help children with autism better understand facial expressions.
ABC News, Aug. 2
“There’s been all this awareness on opioids but very little focus on benzodiazepines and yet people are dying from them.”
Anna Lembke, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, on the rising number of prescriptions for a class of sedative drugs known as benzodiazepines.
NBC News, July 27
"We’ve made big advances in emergency care by having some basic standardized approaches to emergencies. That’s what we’re bringing to maternity care now.”
Elliott Main, MD, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology, on California’s efforts to reduce the number of women who die in childbirth.
NPR, July 29