News

Seattle Children’s has added the following information to our Provider FAQs – COVID-19.

Temporarily Canceling Elective Surgeries and Procedures

Based on new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendations for Seattle-King, Pierce and Snohomish County, Seattle Children’s will cancel all elective surgeries and procedures until further notice. The temporary cancellation of elective surgeries has gone into effect and we have been calling patient families to notify them. PCPs will be notified through our standard channels. We will continue to perform urgent surgeries and procedures during this time. We understand canceling surgeries will have a major impact on the lives of patients and families and appreciate your support while our community is going through this public health emergency.

Q: Will there be changes to ambulatory visits?

A: In response to the updated CDC recommendations, we are reaching out to families to offer telephone (i.e. non-video) or telehealth appointments, or cancel non-urgent ambulatory appointments that can be safely postponed. We will limit all new schedules to urgent and medically necessary clinic visits.

Q: Does Seattle Children’s offer drive-through testing for staff with symptoms of COVID-19?

A: On March 13, Seattle Children’s began offering testing for workforce members who have symptoms of COVID-19 (fever, cough, difficulty breathing). At this time testing is available to Seattle Children’s workforce who have a badge. Read full post »

Seattle Children’s has added the following information to our Provider FAQs – COVID-19.

If families have questions about the coronavirus, please have them call Seattle Children’s only if their question relates specifically to an upcoming appointment with us.

• We continue to receive many calls from the general public about COVID-19. To avoid burdening hospital phone lines and diverting staff from COVID-19 preparations, we are asking our PCP partners in the community to help us direct these inquiries to the appropriate public health authorities and other trustworthy information sources, including:
• Seattle Children’s website with information on the coronavirus
• CDC guidance on how to limit prevent exposure
• Public Health – Seattle & King County website
• Seattle Times: facts about the coronavirus and how to prevent COVID-19

Thank you for your partnership.

Q: Who is being tested for COVID-19?

A: Current capacity for testing is limited. Seattle Children’s is testing the following for COVID-19:

• Admitted patients with any respiratory symptoms or fever of unclear etiology
• ED/Urgent care patients with acute respiratory symptoms or fever of unclear etiology with high risk travel or a known COVID-19 exposure
• Seattle Children’s ambulatory patients with acute respiratory symptoms or fever of unclear etiology and high risk travel or a known COVID-19 exposure.

The following may be tested for COVID-19:

• ED/urgent care patients: with acute respiratory symptoms or fever of unclear etiology
• Seattle Children’s ambulatory patients not meeting the above, but who fall into the following categories:
  • New respiratory symptoms (cough or shortness of breath, with or without fever) AND being in ANY ONE of the following groups:
    • Other underlying medical conditions that place a patient at high risk for complications from a viral respiratory illness, such as immune compromised state, chronic cardiac conditions, chronic pulmonary conditions, diabetes, etc.
    • Patients frequently cared for at SCH and anticipated to have multiple visits at SCH in the following 2 weeks

Seattle Children’s guidelines for testing will be updated as the situation changes. Read full post »

Seattle Children’s has updated the clinical standard work pathway for Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). For more information, please reference our Urinary Tract Infection CSW Pathway.

The pathway first went live in December 2011 and completed its last periodic review in April 2015. After a review of synthesized medical literature and consensus on the recommendations, the pathway team updated the care algorithm. This was an extensive revision that included the following changes:

• Shortened IV antibiotic duration for infants 0-1 month of age with E. coli UTI
• Shortened IV antibiotic duration for bacteremic E. coli UTI
• Shortened total antibiotic duration for children 2 months of age and older
• Criteria for obtaining a renal bladder ultrasound (RBUS)
• Criteria for obtaining a voiding cystourethrogram (VCUG)

Read full post »

A patient who visited Seattle Children’s North Clinic on Monday, February 24 has been tested for COVID-19. Initial test results have come back positive for COVID-19. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is currently performing additional testing; the patient is presumed positive.

Following CDC and Public Health guidance for patients with symptoms of a respiratory infection, the patient put on a mask shortly after arriving and was put in appropriate isolation.

Visit the Washington State Department of Health site for more information.

We are reaching out to workforce members and patient families who may have been exposed with information and guidance.

Since the beginning of January, leaders at Children’s have been preparing for the possibility of a COVID-19 pandemic and planning how to care for patients who test positive.

How will you be notifying families who were potentially exposed and their PCPs?

Both Seattle Children’s and King County Public health will be contacting any families or staff who may have exposed. We will be reaching out to the PCPs of any patients who were potentially exposed.

How should PCPs refer patients with suspected COVID-19?

PCPs who are caring for a patient with suspected COVID-19 should first contact Public Health-Seattle & King County. If, after discussing with Public Health, the decision is made to send the patient to Children’s, the PCP should first notify the ED Communications Center at 206-987-8899.

The viral respiratory panel used at Seattle Children’s does not detect this virus. If the panel detects coronavirus it is due to a different strain.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses. They usually cause mild respiratory illnesses such as the common cold. COVID-19 is a new coronavirus that was not seen in humans prior to December 2019. For more information, please review the coronavirus information sheet.

What should families do if they think they were exposed to COVID-19?

If a family thinks they were exposed to COVID-19, they should contact their primary care provider and Public Health – Seattle & King County by calling 1-800-525-0127 and pressing #. Unless it is an emergency, families should not go to their nearest emergency room without calling ahead so Public Health can take steps to provide them with the right treatment and protect others from a possible exposure. Please direct families to the Public Health-Seattle & King County website for more information.

For the most accurate and up-to-date information about COVID-19 visit;

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Washington State Department of Health
• Public Health — Seattle & King County

On February 25, we re-opened our hospital campus operating rooms that were previously closed.

Over the last several months, we have implemented and completed a number of safety improvements which include:

• Installing a new rooftop air handling system
• Installing in-room HEPA filtration systems in our ORs; this is the highest level of filtration found in ORs today

During the intermittent closures of our operating rooms, we performed some surgeries at partner hospitals including Harborview, Swedish, UW Medical Center and Mary Bridge. We are grateful for their support.

Rescheduling surgeries

We are taking a thoughtful approach to rescheduling surgeries that were postponed due to the closure, including reviewing surgeries on a daily basis to assess urgency and priority. It will take time to reschedule them all; our scheduling team is contacting families now to begin this work.

How should we refer patients with possible surgical needs?

Please follow our normal referral process.

Findings by CMS and DOH

After we self-reported the air quality issues to the DOH, the DOH conducted site visits, reviewed records, and interviewed staff. The DOH closed its investigation on January 8, 2020 concluding that there were no deficiencies. CMS conducted a site visit on December 10, 2019 from which there were no findings. Seattle Children’s fully cooperated with these reviews and we were encouraged that the investigations were closed with no findings.

For more information, read our complete FAQ for providers.

Providers who would like to speak with Seattle Children’s leadership team directly should contact Dr. Jeff Ojemann, Seattle Children’s surgeon-in-chief (206-987-2544 or Jeffery.Ojemann@seattlechildrens.org).

If you have an urgent clinical concern, please call the Provider-to-Provider Line at 206-987-7777 and ask to speak to the specific surgical service on call.

Seattle Children’s Otolaryngology website now includes a new “Refer a Patient” page with detailed guidelines and resources for PCPs about referring patients to Otolaryngology. It includes information about when to refer patients for conditions such as strep throat, ear infections, sinusitis (nasal drainage/rhinitis) and tonsillar hypertrophy and how to manage these conditions in primary care when that is the appropriate setting for care. Read full post »

Referring providers can now find algorithms created by Seattle Children’s specialists on our website on the new “Algorithms for Referring Providers” page. They are listed A to Z by disease type. They are also found on the “Refer a Patient” pages on the specialty clinic websites. Click here to see a full list. The “Refer a Patient” pages were written specifically for referring providers to offer helpful guidelines on how and when to refer patients to a specialist, what to expect after a referral is made and how to get help with a referral. Read full post »

Our Neurosciences Center recently developed a standard of care for tic disorders/Tourette syndrome to assist referring providers (see below). It offers a provider checklist with helpful resources, including a list of local therapy resources in Western Washington and Yakima.

Tic Disorders/Tourette Syndrome Policy

Background

• Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (Tourette syndrome) is an early childhood-onset neurodevelopmental disorder marked by the appearance of multiple involuntary movements and vocalizations, referred to as “tics.”
• Tourette syndrome is commonly associated with comorbid conditions such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety disorder and other behavioral problems.
• According to some reports, 80% to 90% of patients with Tourette syndrome have both tics and psychiatric manifestations.
• These comorbid disorders can cause significant functional impairment and poor self-esteem and can affect the quality of life of patients with Tourette syndrome.

Read full post »

All of Seattle Children’s operating rooms (ORs) have been closed since Jan. 18 for work to install HEPA filtration systems in individual ORs and to install a new air handling system. Four ORs are re-opening Wednesday, Feb. 5 and the remaining ORs are scheduled to re-open in mid- to late February, although dates are subject to change.

To respect our patients and families — and to avoid unnecessary rescheduling of surgeries — we will not start scheduling non-urgent surgeries until we have a full go-live date.

How should we refer patients with possible surgical needs?

Please continue to refer patients by calling our ED Communications Center at 206-987-8899. We will review potential surgical patients on a case-by-case basis with the appropriate surgical specialists and with our surgeon-in-chief. We still expect to have capacity for emergency cases. We will continue to divert some cases to other local hospitals and perform additional surgeries at our Bellevue Clinic and Surgery Center.

For more information, read our complete FAQ for providers.

Providers who would like to speak with Seattle Children’s leadership team directly should contact Dr. Jeff Ojemann, Seattle Children’s surgeon-in-chief (206-987-2544 or Jeffery.Ojemann@seattlechildrens.org).

If you have an urgent clinical concern, please call the Provider-to-Provider Line at 206-987-7777 and ask to speak to the specific surgical service on call.

We want to provide an update on how Seattle Children’s is preparing for the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). To date, no Children’s patients have tested positive for 2019-nCoV.

PCPs who are caring for a patient with suspected 2019-nCoV should first contact Public Health-Seattle & King County. If, after discussing with Public Health, the decision is made to send the patient to Children’s, the PCP should first notify the ED Communications Center at 206-987-8899.

The viral respiratory panel used at Seattle Children’s does not detect this virus. If the panel detects coronavirus it is due to a different strain.

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses. They usually cause mild respiratory illnesses such as the common cold. 2019-nCoV is a new coronavirus that was not seen in humans prior to December 2019. For more information, please review the coronavirus information sheet. Read full post »