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.
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“You pay the price for having cancer over and over again.” Mai Nguyen’s words are loaded with sorrow as she speaks about her 17-year-old daughter, Taylor Tran, who is dealing with fertility concerns more than a decade after she survived late-stage cancer.
Taylor Tran (left) and her mother Mai Nguyen. Taylor underwent cancer treatment when she was 2 years old, causing her to go into early menopause when she was just 16.
It’s easy to understand the indignation Mai feels: Her daughter was diagnosed with stage 3 single-cell sarcoma of the kidney when she was 2 years old and was treated with intense chemotherapy and radiation. Now, the treatments that saved her life have put her into early menopause.
“It’s been traumatic,” Mai says. “We tried so hard to allow Taylor to have a normal childhood and this feels like one more thing cancer has taken from her.”
Stories like Taylor’s inspired Seattle Children’s urologist Dr. Margarett Shnorhavorian to tackle a challenging area of research that was largely uncharted when she started more than a decade ago. Since then, she’s helped change perspectives and protocols for fertility preservation in childhood cancer survivors. 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 [email protected]).
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.
Provider Grand Rounds
Seattle Children’s holds Provider Grand Rounds every Thursday in the hospital’s Wright Auditorium from 8 to 9 a.m. Area providers are welcome to attend.
Feb. 6: Pediatric Integrative Medicine: Hope for the Future in the Support of Our Children and Adolescents With Chronic Disease. Klavano Holistic Care Lecture. Melanie Brown, MD, FAAP; associate professor of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota; director of Integrative Medicine, Children’s Minnesota.
Feb. 13. The Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic’s 50th Anniversary. King/Lavizzo Lecture. Benjamin Danielson, MD; clinic chief, Odessa Brown Medical Clinic; senior medical director, Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic and Central Region; Janet and Jim Sinegal Endowed Chair for the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic. Read full post »
March 2020 courses (enrollment closes Feb. 28):
- PALS Renewal courses: March 13, 2020, 7 am to 2:30 p.m.
- HeartCode: March 11, 12:30 to 3:45 p.m. OR March 12, 12:30 to 3:45 p.m. HeartCode is an appropriate alternative for experienced pediatric healthcare providers who are comfortable with computer simulation and may have class-time limitations.
- Information and registration for all PALS courses.
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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 »
Following installation of a new air handling system in December that required a temporary shutdown of all operating rooms (ORs), Seattle Children’s has reopened the three ORs that already had in-room HEPA filtration.
These three ORs will be closed again for a couple of weeks beginning Jan. 18 to allow for commissioning of the new air handling system.
Ten other ORs remain closed to allow for installation of new HEPA filtration systems in each of those rooms. We expect that work to be complete no sooner than mid- to late- February; however, all 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.
We are continuing our extended operating hours at the hospital (until Jan. 18) and Bellevue Clinic and Surgery Center and are performing some surgeries at partner hospitals.
For your convenience in fielding inquiries from concerned patient families, we’ve created flyers in English and Spanish about air quality in our operating rooms. Please feel free to print and share them with patient families as needed. Read full post »
Seattle Children’s Gastroenterology program is notifying referring providers that patients referred for functional abdominal pain, functional constipation or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) are not being scheduled unless they are showing alarm signs or red flags.* They are instead re-directed to their referring provider for care. Patients on GI’s waitlist also are being notified, as are their referring providers.
The decision is intended to provide better access to timely care for those children who most need GI’s specialty care. It is driven by sustained high demand for GI specialty care and the departure in 2019 of several GI team members for other opportunities. GI is actively recruiting new providers and hopes to be able to resume seeing patients for these conditions again in late 2020. Read full post »
