Announcements

Seattle Children’s is proud to announce the opening of a new Airway and Esophageal Center serving babies, children and teens through age 20. The center provides seamless, multidisciplinary care from a highly experienced team of experts for patients who have complex conditions affecting their airway, breathing and swallowing.

“Due to these patients’ complexity and need for care from many different specialists throughout their childhood, it’s essential they receive well-coordinated care from experts who are working as an integrated team and communicating regularly,” says Dr. Jake Dahl, an otolaryngologist at the center. “We have created the Airway and Esophageal Center expressly for that purpose, with care coordination and wraparound services built in to ensure our patients don’t just survive, they thrive.”

This highest level of continuous, comprehensive specialty care for children with challenging airway and esophageal issues is unique to Seattle Children’s regionally and hard to find even nationally.

Multidisciplinary Care

The Airway and Esophageal Center team includes experts from many Seattle Children’s specialties: otolaryngology, gastroenterology, pulmonology, sleep medicine, maxillofacial surgery, pediatric surgery, anesthesiology, speech and language pathology, nutrition, feeding therapy, social work, nursing, newborn critical care and pediatric intensive care. Read full post »

Gastroenterology (GI) has approximately 3,000 referrals waiting to be scheduled, with limited appointment slots available to see new patients. This means nonurgent general GI referrals without red flags, including constipation (which is one of the more common referrals received by GI), are currently scheduling three to five months out.

While GI is continuing to accept patient referrals for constipation at this time, program leaders are encouraging PCPs to manage their patients with constipation in primary care whenever possible and appropriate to ensure the most timely care. This also helps Seattle Children’s maintain access for patients who most need specialty care.

To assist PCPs in caring for patients with constipation, Seattle Children’s offers a detailed functional constipation clinical protocol and algorithm on our website. In addition, the GI Refer a Patient webpage offers:

• Guidelines for families, including education materials to help understand and manage their child’s constipation
• Parent booklet about constipation from St. Louis Children’s
• Dosage Tables

• • Polyethylene Glycol (MiraLAX) Dosage Table
  • Severe or Chronic Constipation: Polyethylene Glycol (MiraLAX) Dosage Table
  • Chronic Constipation Treatment 3-Day Cleanout and Maintenance Dosing Tables
• Bowel Cleanout and Maintenance Program at a Glance

Patients with constipation who have red flags (see protocol and/or algorithm) or who have attempted the treatment protocol without success are appropriate to be seen by GI and should be referred. Please clearly describe the treatment that has been tried already to help us properly triage and schedule your patient.

The Seattle Children’s GI team acknowledges the excellent work of PCPs in the community who are managing constipation in primary care and encourage you to let us know if there are ways we can improve the resources we are providing (above) in support of your care.

The large number of referrals to Otolaryngology in recent months has lengthened the wait times for new patient visits to two to three months. Otolaryngology is actively triaging referrals. To help reduce wait times and ensure patients can be seen in a timely manner, we may redirect some patients back to their PCP if that is a more appropriate setting for their care.

Algorithms are available to assist community providers in managing patients with many of the conditions commonly referred to Otolaryngology, including:

• Acute Otitis Media
• Acute Otitis Media With Treatment Failure
• Recurrent Acute Otitis Media
• Chronic Otitis Media
• Acute Pharyngitis
• Recurrent Pharyngitis
• Chronic Sinusitis (Chronic Rhinitis/Chronic Nasal Drainage)
• Acute Sinusitis
• Tonsillar Hypertrophy

Otolaryngology’s referral guidelines are located on our website. They offer additional details about referring to Seattle Children’s when your patient is experiencing conditions such as ear infection, sinusitis, strep throat, sore throat, and hypernasal resonance.

Hospital capacity

Seattle Children’s is beginning to experience some relief from the extremely high capacity constraints of recent months. We do, however, continue to see high winter volumes.

• Overall hospital census remains high, and the Emergency Department (ED) is still seeing extremely high patient volumes.
• The wave of patients experiencing mental and behavioral health crises is not slowing down.
• Seattle Children’s remains in active Code Yellow status, although at a lower level of response; we continue to monitor the situation and enact solutions to address the challenges we are facing.

Other important updates from Seattle Children’s

• Synagis season has ended: Due to exponential declines in RSV rates and related admissions, Seattle Children’s is no longer administering Synagis prophylaxis as of Tuesday, February 28. For more information, please consult state-specific recommendations for patients outside of our local area and review WA state and other data from the CDC.
• We have a scheduling backlog; please encourage families to proactively call us to schedule. We are hiring additional scheduling staff to keep pace with high demand but our pace of calling out to families to schedule is slower than we’d like. In some cases, patients may get an appointment several weeks sooner if they proactively call us to schedule instead of waiting for one of our schedulers to call them.
• GI has high referral volumes and long wait times; please manage constipation in primary care whenever possible.
  • Non-urgent general GI referrals without red flags, including constipation, are currently scheduling 3 to 5 months out.
  • GI has approximately 3,000 referrals in their scheduling queue with limited slots immediately available.
  • GI is still accepting constipation referrals but encourages PCPs to see these patients in primary care whenever possible to ensure timely care. This will also help Seattle Children’s maintain good access for patients who most need specialty care.
  • Our GI Refer a Patient webpage offers many PCP resources including:
    • Functional Constipation Clinical Protocol (PDF), developed by Seattle Children’s specialists in collaboration with community providers, can help you determine whether your patient should be referred to a specialist or treated in primary care.
    • Algorithm for Functional Constipation (p. 12 in document above)
    • Guideline for families, including education materials to help understand and manage their child’s constipation
    • Polyethylene Glycol (MiraLAX) Dosage Table
    • Severe or Chronic Constipation: Polyethylene Glycol (MiraLAX) Dosage Table
    • Chronic Constipation Treatment 3-Day Cleanout and Maintenance Dosing Tables
    • Bowel Cleanout and Maintenance Program at a Glance

Seattle Children’s is pleased to announced Dr. Terri Laguna has accepted the position of division chief of Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine at Seattle Children’s.

She is coming to us from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago where she is division head of Pulmonary and Sleep Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and director of the Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia Center of Excellence. Read full post »

As Seattle Children’s referral volumes continue to grow, we are hiring additional scheduling staff to keep pace with demand. But until we are fully staffed later this Spring, our pace of calling out to families to schedule their appointments will continue to be slower than we’d like.

In some cases, patients may get an appointment several weeks sooner if they proactively call to schedule instead of waiting for one of our schedulers to call them. 

When referring a patient to Seattle Children’s, please advise the family to call us to make their appointment (1-2 days after the referral is submitted).

We regret this inconvenience to families but believe this will help them receive better service in the short term.

Our Heart Center is proud to introduce the inaugural edition of Seattle Children’s Cardiac Beat. In the first issue, you’ll find information about:

• Our new, state-of-the-art cardiac procedural suites on Seattle Children’s campus
• A groundbreaking study about an adjustable heart stent for children with coarctation of the aorta
• The latest thinking on fetal echocardiograms in a Q&A with Dr. Bhawna Arya
• The results of a study designed to decrease ventilator-associated tracheitis (VAT) in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit

Seattle Children’s Cardiac Beat will publish news and information about the latest diagnostic, therapeutic and research advances in cardiovascular diseases and cardiac surgery at Seattle Children’s.

Seattle Children’s has purchased 43.9 acres of land in Renton, Washington to invest in our future growth. Making this investment will help ensure Children’s can continue to provide hope, care and cures to every child in our region who needs us. Future clinical services located at this site will position Seattle Children’s to serve more patients who need care, closer to home.

We plan to lease the existing office buildings to other organizations until we are ready to develop.

Planning and permitting for the future of this site will take several years and any capital investment must be balanced and timed with other priorities across the organization. It is not yet known what services could be located in Renton, nor is there a specific schedule in place for development at this time.

In order to expand access to pediatric primary care in Washington state, Seattle Children’s will begin offering virtual visits with our urgent care providers beginning in mid-January. In addition, our Urgent Care (UC) clinic in Seattle at the hospital has moved to a larger space, added providers and expanded its weekday hours to open at 11 a.m. (versus 4 p.m.) effective Monday, January 9.

Virtual visits  

• Will begin mid-January
• Patients must be in Washington state at the time of their virtual visit.
• Virtual UC hours: 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
• To schedule, families should use the online Urgent Care scheduling portal and choose “video visit” as their preferred location.
• Virtual visits will be for children with these symptoms:
  • Allergies
  • Bite (animal, human, insect)
  • Cold and flu symptoms
  • Constipation
  • Cough/congestion
  • Croup
  • Diarrhea
  • Eye infection
  • Fever age 2+ years
  • Head injury (no loss of consciousness)
  • Injury advice
  • Lice
  • Nausea/vomiting
  • Sinus infection
  • Skin rash
  • Sore throat
  • Urinary tract infection

Read full post »

A family arrives for their first appointment at Seattle Children’s Magnuson

Seattle Children’s is pleased to share that on December 12, 2022, Seattle Children’s Magnuson opened as the new showcase home for Seattle Children’s Autism Center and outpatient behavioral health services.

The new 45,000-square-foot clinic was entirely funded by donations as a result of the vision of Seattle Children’s Generation REACH initiative to transform mental health care for all youth and families.

“Seattle Children’s is working to create a future where every young person has access to evidence-based mental and behavioral health services when and where they need them,” said Dr. Carol Rockhill, medical director, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinics, Seattle Children’s. “Seattle Children’s Magnuson is a huge step in that direction, providing more treatment rooms and clinical spaces, better technology, gathering spaces for families and children with mental health care needs, autism and more.” Read full post »