Respect for Your Voice & Ideas

We respect the power of your voice to make a significant impact through open communications and problem resolution. You will be encouraged to speak up during daily huddles, team meetings, and via routine surveys and continuous process improvement activities to identify waste and barriers to success in an effort to make your work simpler, more efficient, and safer.

In doing so, we will ensure we meet our care delivery, patient satisfaction, employee engagement, and overall operational targets - allowing us to maintain our position as the Bay Area’s leading health network for children and expectant mothers.

Strength through Open Communications and Problem Resolution

Our willingness to confront many of the challenges that today’s hospitals face defines the Stanford Medicine Children's Health culture. One of the most direct expressions of this is the Packard Quality Management System (PQMS). The system makes our work simpler, more effective and safer, dramatically improving:

• Care delivery
• Patient satisfaction
• Employee engagement
• Overall efficiency

PQMS fosters an environment where problems are discussed openly and seen as opportunities that can lead to better outcomes. Overall, it leads to process improvements and makes problems and solutions visible and active parts of our culture.

Culture of Accountability

Providing extraordinary family-centered care is one of our top priorities to ensure the optimal human experience is achieved at Stanford Medicine Children's Health and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. PCARES is our enterprise wide improvement program that’s helping us dramatically improve patient as well as colleague to colleague experiences and overall efficiency through better communication.

PCARES asks you to:

• Personalize your interaction by using proper names (mr./ms.) or preferred name, introduce yourself, state your role and introduce colleagues.
• Communicate compassionately by using statements that convey understanding and consideration of the patient, family or colleague experience.
• Assess situations by asking patients, families and colleagues guiding questions to encourage further conversation and to gather more information.
• Respond promptly to questions or request and anticipate needs. Invite patient, family, or colleague input or perspectives. Offer choices when possible.
• Expectation setting by explaining what you are going to do, how long it will take, and how it will impact the patient, family or colleague. Exit courteously with an explanation of what will come next.
• Support the team by acknowledging and supporting the commitment of your colleagues to provide nurturing care. Model trust – speak positively about colleagues and other departments.

We’re serious about making effective communication and openness a hallmark of our diverse environment. It leads directly to better patient outcomes and experiences, improved colleague interactions and enhances our already outstanding professional culture. PQMS and PCARES are just two examples of the many ways our environment can enrich your career all while improving the quality of care that people have come to expect from Stanford Children's Health.

Family-Centered Care

One unique aspect of the Stanford Medicine Children's Health culture is “family-centered care.” This is the belief that children receive the best possible care when the health care team works in close partnership with families. Examples of this are evident throughout Stanford Medicine Children's Health. For instance, our Parent Hours program consists of weekly meetings with parent groups to discuss and learn about topics related to their child’s hospitalization.

For Our Patients, Family-Centered Care:

• Creates a health care environment that is accessible, supportive and responsive to our patients’ developmental needs
• Facilitates partnerships between patients and health care providers
• Builds relationships based on mutual respect and open communication
• Helps patients determine how to best participate in their own health care
• Seeks to understand the patient's perspective
• Protects patient privacy and confidentiality

For Our Families, Family-Centered Care:

• Honors the central role of families in their child’s life
• Builds on family strengths and acknowledges differences in family health care beliefs and approaches
• Is responsive to the different partnership preferences families bring to the health care experience
• Ensures that families have access to clear and complete information to support shared decision-making
• Provides opportunities and resources to promote family competence in caring for their child
• Seeks to understand the perspective of families
• Protects family privacy and confidentiality

As a pediatric hospital, it’s vital that our relationships with parents and children be built on trust and respect, and that means elevating the role of collaboration in facilitating better care. Visit our Family-Centered Care page for more information about this aspect of our culture.