The Division of Emergency Medicine and the Emergency Department provide 24-hours-per-day, 365-days-per-year care for children from birth through age 21.
We provide specialized physician, nursing, social services and environmental expertise in management of urgent, emergency and critical medical and surgical issues. Emergency Medicine is dedicated to providing the highest-quality, up-to-date, consistent, safe and efficient pediatric emergency care in a family-centered environment. Our team’s focus on excellence and continuous performance improvement (CPI) has increased patient satisfaction, decreased lengths of stay, and improved other metrics of emergency medical-care delivery.
The Emergency Department treats over 40,000 patients per year. Half of all patients admitted to Children’s are initially cared for in our department. An additional, seven-bed acute emergency treatment area opened in January 2007, which increased our total number of beds to 25; an additional 8 to 15 beds are available during evenings and weekends. This increased capacity, along with a corresponding increase in physician, nursing and administrative personnel, has improved our ability to respond to our patients and community while ensuring optimal quality and efficiency.
Approximately 150 residents from multiple programs throughout the Puget Sound region train in our ED each year. We are also invested in the education of medical, nursing, and paramedic students. The division sponsors an ACGME-approved pediatric emergency medicine fellowship program, recently expanded to accommodate six fellows with a background in either pediatrics or emergency medicine. Our faculty of 26 board-eligible/-certified PEM physicians and 30 board-eligible/-certified clinical pediatric physicians provides care in the ED and in related Urgent Care Centers.
We are actively engaged as participants and leaders in ED and hospital-related CPI efforts to improve all aspects of our patients’ care and experience. We are involved in primary and collaborative clinical research focusing on education, sedation, respiratory illnesses, infectious diseases, injury management, injury prevention, informatics, quality, resuscitation and safety. Our physicians are also involved in local, regional and international education and hold Hospital, University, local, regional, and national administrative, pediatric and emergency medicine leadership positions.