Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford

Organization Background

Opened as a 302-bed hospital in 1991, the Lucile Packard Children”s Hospital Stanford is both nationally ranked and internationally recognized, and is the heart and soul of Stanford Children”s Health. The hospital is devoted to pediatrics and obstetrics and the original building has six centers dedicated to providing comprehensive services in key obstetric and pediatric areas: brain and behavior, cancer, heart, pregnancy and newborn, pulmonary and transplant. It relies on an army of 700 volunteers – most of whom are either elderly retirees or from the University”s population of aspiring and current medical students – to help in carrying out its mission. Lucile Packard Children”s Hospital Stanford is dramatically expanding and opening a new hospital in December 2017 and needed to double its volunteer ranks (to 1,400) to meet this expanded need.

Key Highlight

One of the reasons Sterling Volunteers became the choice of the Lucile Packard Children”s Hospital Stanford was its ability to easily integrate with many common Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS). In this case, the hospital was moving to the Samaritan Technologies volunteer management platform. “We were shopping for database management, and choosing between Samaritan and another vendor,” says Maryellen Brady, Director, Volunteer Services for the hospital. “Sterling Volunteers was able to step in and integrate with Samaritan easily.”

Background

The hospital began doing thorough background checks in 2001, which originally included fingerprinting through the Department of Justice and the local sheriff”s office as well as a database search. While the hospital was generally happy with its background checks, its volunteers hated how the fingerprinting process delayed their onboarding. “Our volunteers were the ones begging for us to change our background checks,” says Maryellen Brady, Director, Volunteer Services, Lucile Packard Children”s Hospital Stanford. “They were so sick of the lengthy process. And the customer service by the staff at the sheriff”s office wasn”t always the best.”

Solution

Sterling Volunteers was introduced in February 2016 as a standalone background check option while the hospital finalized the purchase, setup and migration to Samaritan. Once the ATS system was up and running, Sterling Volunteers was integrated into the platform and linked up with the hospital”s volunteer database. The process was painless for Ms. Brady and her team. Since the hospital was also in the process of hiring an additional 400 staff, it was imperative that both new employees and volunteers go through the same screening process. Sterling Volunteers was able to customize the hospital”s screening solution so that a quarterly sanctions check could be run all volunteers.

Results

Since implementing Sterling Volunteers as it screening provider, the hospital”s volunteers have been very receptive to the fast and intuitive platform. “Ease of use is a big plus,” says Ms. Brady. “And the pricing has been fair and the customer service has been fantastic—our account representative has always been amazing and responsive.”

Ms. Brady and her team have also benefited from Sterling Volunteers” regulatory compliance expertise. “We did have some issues with a state senate bill about running background checks on minors,” says Ms. Brady. “Sterling Volunteers was right there with best practices and legislative information.”

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