Stanford Hospital, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and the Stanford University School of Medicine have combined to publish an eight-page newsletter mailed to residents last week.

It's actually the second newsletter of three to be published each year.

"We've been feeling a need to do a better job of communicating with our community," said Jean McCown, director of community relations for the university. "The project (to expand Stanford and Packard hospitals) increased that feeling."

There are plans to replace the existing Stanford Hospital, built in 1959, with 1.3 million new square feet of construction and expand the hospital by 144 beds. Packard Hospital would get 401,500 square feet of new facilities and be expanded by 104 beds. The School of Medicine would be replaced without any net increase of square footage.

The projects need to be approved by the City of Palo Alto.

The newsletter, Stanford Medicine News, had a print run of 85,000 and was mailed to registered voters in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, Portola Valley, Woodside and Atherton, said Ruthann Richter, director of media relations at the School of Medicine.

-- Don Kazak