Providing the Best Possible Support
At Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, our experts see the highest acuity patients in California, many with extraordinarily complex care needs. Sometimes children are hospitalized for a short time, while others—along with their families—receive care for years. Their quality of life guides every aspect of this work.
The Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care team spans pediatrics, psychology, nursing, pain management, social work, chaplaincy, child life, education, and case management. The team partners with the child’s primary care team to meet families where they are and assist in decision-making and developing a plan to make every day the best day possible. This goes beyond the patient’s symptoms, underlying condition, or disease—it addresses the broader continuum of well-being, including the psychological, emotional, spiritual, and cultural needs of each child. With everyone working together, each child receives the comfort and dignity they deserve.
The number of children around the world who need access to pediatric palliative care each year
Our Holistic Approach to Pediatric Palliative Care
Justin Baker, MD, is the inaugural division chief of Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health. Dr. Baker’s approach focuses on Quality of Life for All (QoLA, pronounced “koala”).
Dr. Baker and his team will leverage philanthropy to expand the QoLA Program at Packard Children’s and beyond. We are grateful for your help making this vision a reality!
QoLA Pediatric Palliative Care:
- Is appropriate at any stage of serious illness and can be provided alongside disease-directed treatment.
- Prevents, identifies, and addresses suffering in children with serious illnesses, their families, and the teams that care for them.
- Is an active and holistic approach to caring for patients and families.
- Embraces physical, emotional, psychological, social, spiritual, and cultural elements.
- Includes management of symptoms, provision for respite, and care through death and bereavement.
Opportunities for Impact
Your support is vital to help families navigate incredibly difficult moments. Partner with us to:
Expand our clinical team.
Our goal is to build a robust team to expand the reach of our program so it is embedded in all clinical areas across the hospital and into homes—making quality of life a part of every care team conversation. Philanthropy will accelerate the hiring of child life specialists, medical interpreters, social workers, chaplains, home-based care providers, and more, all specializing in palliative care.
Fuel research.
Our palliative care leaders are world-renowned for their research on palliative care, grief and bereavement, and advancing quality of life. We want to hire a team to build upon the momentum of our evidence-based research in psychology, quality improvement, curriculum development, and more so that we can propel the global field of pediatric palliative care forward.
Train the next generation.
We aim to establish an all-new accredited pediatric palliative care fellowship program. Fellows will develop the skills to improve care for critically ill children at Packard Children’s and beyond. Philanthropy will help launch this fellowship and directly support up to three fellows a year in their training—launching future experts in this field.
Support Pediatric Palliative Care
Philanthropy is a driving force behind our work to provide the best possible quality of life to every patient and family at Packard Children’s Hospital. Find out how you can make a difference.
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