Children's hospitals ask voters to fund improvements.

Few can resist a tug on the heart for a sick child.

The state's 13 children's hospitals are counting on such sentiment in November, when voters will consider a $750 million ballot proposition that would fund various improvements at their facilities.

The ballot will be crowded with 14 propositions--including measures to fund emergency care, mental health services and stem cell research--but no others specifically benefit children.

"Children's hospitals are really unique in that we do provide care to the sickest of the sick in the state as well as the kid next door," says Charity Bracy, vice president of government relations for the California Children's Hospital Association, the sponsor of Proposition 61.

So far, the measure has been virtually invisible. But that will change later this summer when the association mounts an ad campaign paid for by the state's eight independent nonprofit children's hospitals, which have each spent at least $350,000 so far in support of the initiative.

(The other five hospitals, including Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA, are affiliated with the public University of California system and thus prohibited by law from spending money on the initiative.)

The eight hospitals also would split the lion's share of the funding--$600 million, or no more than $75 million each--while the remaining $150 million would be split among the five UC hospitals.

The rationale for the measure is that the non-profits have a particularly expensive mission: providing cutting-edge medical care for the state's expanding population of children, many of whom are without private insurance.

At the same time, the hospitals are being required to retrofit their facilities over the next decade to meet a state earthquake safety law.

However, all children's hospitals are not created equal. Childrens Hospital Los Angeles has so HEALTH CARE raised $383 million of a $500 million capital campaign that will help fund a new $300 million hospital. It will go forward even if the proposition fails.

At the same time, Miller Children's Hospital in Long Beach also wants to rebuild its facilities, but may not be able to get going on its $100 million first phase unless the proposition passes.

Private polling done by the hospital association has found 66 percent of state voters support the proposition, which needs a majority vote for passage.

Name Game

What's in a name? Enough to sometimes warrant a change, say the folks at the Research and Education Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

Last week, the 52-year-old independent research institute renamed itself the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, or LA BioMed for short, as part of an effort to pump up its visibility both locally and nationally.

The institute, which is affiliated but separate from the Harbor area public hospital, receives $25 million in grant funding annually from the National Institutes of Health.

While researchers there have developed the modern cholesterol test and other important medical advances, the institute has maintained a low profile: The current administration wants to change that, starting with the name.

"We have gotten great feedback from the business and VC community," said Kenneth Trevett, the institute's chief executive. "Their view is this will be helpful in getting the broader public to identify that the Los Angeles area is a critically important area in biomedical research and development."

Physician Corps

With UCLA Medical Center, Cedars-Sinai and other world-class institutions, Los Angeles residents have access to some of the best medical care in the world.

But some areas of the county also have been designated as among the most medically underserved in the state, qualifying physicians who work in them for special assistance from the Medical Board of California in paying off their medical school loans.

The program pays each doctor up to $105,000 for loan payments in return for at least three years of service. There are now seven doctors in Los Angeles working at various community clinics in Venice, Wilmington and other low-income communities. Last year, the board-provided a total of $3 million to 32 physicians in the program statewide.

Staff reporter Laurence Darmiento can be reached at [phone] ext. 237 or at [e-mail].