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Inpatient Rehabilitation

Statistics and Outcomes

Seattle Children’s provides comprehensive rehabilitation services for children and teens with a wide range of aquired conditions and complex traumatic injuries.

Our Inpatient Rehabilitation Medicine Program has been designated as a Trauma 1 pediatric rehab program by Washington State Department of Health. Our medical and therapy teams have advanced training and certifications in the unique rehabilitative needs of children and teens.

For nearly a quarter century, our rehabilitation unit has been accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). CARF International is an independent, nonprofit accreditor of health and human services. Accreditation is a comprehensive program review to determine whether a program’s services meet international standards of quality.  CARF accreditation means the program is committed to delivering safe and effective care and ongoing performance improvement, with a focus on outcomes and the satisfaction of patients and their families.

View Inpatient Rehabilitation's Scope of Services 

We publish this information on our outcomes to help you make informed decisions about your child’s care. We also use this information to improve the quality of care we provide.

Parent/caregiver Satisfaction

After discharge from our rehabilitation program, we ask our patients’ families whether they would recommend Seattle Children’s Rehabilitation Services to someone whose child needed rehabilitation. More than 99% of our patients’ families would recommend our program for children needing rehabilitative care.

Number of Patients in 2024

139

Where Patients and Families Come From 

Children and teens from all over the Pacific Northwest come to Seattle Children’s for inpatient rehabilitation. Our staff will work closely with you and your child’s community providers to make the return home as smooth as possible.

5.8%
Alaska
5.8%
Montana, Idaho and Oregon
10.1%
Eastern Washington
78.3%
Western Washington
Percentage of new patients by age
26.6%
0 to 6 years old
24.5%
7 to 11 years old
38.1%
12 to 16 years old
10.8%
17 and older
Percentage of new patients by diagnosis
37.2%
Non-traumatic brain injury or disease
22.6%
Traumatic brain injury
11.7%
Traumatic and non-traumatic spinal cord injury or disease
9.1%
Selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR)/single-event multilevel surgery (SEMLS)
5.8%
Stroke
5.1%
Debility

Patient Race/Ethnicity

The table below shows our most frequently self-reported patient races/ethnicities from October 2023 – September 2024.

46%
Non-Hispanic White
22.3%
Hispanic
18.7%
Other/Did Not Answer
7.9%
Black/African American
4.3%
Asian
0.7%
American Indian/Alaska Native

Average hours of therapy per day by diagnosis

“Hours of therapy per day” includes physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech- language pathology. Additional services for your child may include education services, rehabilitation psychology, neuropsychology, social work and therapeutic recreation.

We will work with you and your child to develop a specific therapy program designed to meet your child’s needs and goals.

3.4
Brain injury
3.8
Traumatic brain injury
3.8
Traumatic spinal cord injury or disease
3.3
Stroke
3.4
Selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR)/single-event multilevel surgery (SEMLS)

Average Length of Stay by Diagnosis

“Length of stay” means the number of days a child or teen was hospitalized on the rehabilitation unit. Your child’s length of stay will vary based on their illness or injury. Our goal is to get your child back to their home and community as quickly as possible, with the best possible functional outcome.

 

  • All diagnoses
    18.3 days
    Average length of stay at Seattle Children’s
    23.1 days
    Average length of stay at similar facilities
  • Brain injury (due to disease or disorder, such as brain tumor)
    16.2 days
    Average length of stay at Seattle Children’s
    23.4 days
    Average length of stay at similar facilities
  • Traumatic brain injury (due to accident or other trauma)
    24.5 days
    Average length of stay at Seattle Children’s
    24.9 days
    Average length of stay at similar facilities
  • Spinal cord disease (such as neurodegenerative disease, myelitis, etc.)
    15.8 days
    Average length of stay at Seattle Children’s
    23 days
    Average length of stay at similar facilities
  • Traumatic spinal cord injury (due to accident or other trauma)
    16.7 days
    Average length of stay at Seattle Children’s
    31 days
    Average length of stay at similar facilities
  • Stroke
    23.1 days
    Average length of stay at Seattle Children’s
    24.8 days
    Average length of stay at similar facilities
  • Selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR)/single-event multilevel surgery (SEMLS)
    18.9 days
    Average length of stay at Seattle Children’s
    21.4 days
    Average length of stay at similar facilities

Percentage of patients discharged to home

It is a better outcome when a patient can return to their home instead of being discharged to another medical setting. We met our 2024 goal and were able to discharge 95% of our patients to their homes rather than to other facilities.

>95%
Goal
95%
Outcome

WeeFIM scores at discharge and at 90 days post-discharge

Following discharge from our program, children continue to make progress with their recoveries.  The WeeFIM is an assessment tool that measures functional independence in skills such as walking, dressing, and communicating. We administer the WeeFIM at admission, discharge, and at 90 days post-discharge.  This table shows our goal for improvements in WeeFIM scores between discharge from the hospital, and 90 days post-discharge. We surpassed our goal in 2024 with a 30.8% improvement in WeeFIM scores across all diagnoses.

>20%
Goal improvement over discharge scores
30.8%
Actual improvement over discharge scores

Percentage of patients who do not require hospitalization after returning home

This table shows the percentage of rehabilitation patients who did not need to return to the hospital for rehab-related reasons after being discharged. A higher rate is considered better. We exceeded our 2024 goal, with a rate of 87%.

>85%
Goal
87%
Outcome

Percentage of parents or caregivers who were satisfied with their child’s preparation for returning to school

This table shows the percentage of families or caregivers who reported they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied,” at 90 days post-discharge, with the way the rehabilitation program prepared their child for returning to school. We exceeded our goal, with parent or caregiver satisfaction at 98.60%.

>95%
Goal
98.6%
Outcome

Percentage of parents or caregivers who reported their child had returned to play and leisure activities

This table shows the percentage of parents or caregivers who reported that their child had returned to regular participation in play and leisure activities at 90 days post-discharge. We exceeded our goal for this target.

>75%
Goal
84.1%
Outcome

Additional Quality and Safety Measures 

We are always working to improve the safety and quality of the care we provide. In addition to the statistics shown above, in 2024 we measured progress on the following goals: 

Maintain 0 CLABSI infections

This goal measures the number of CLABSI infections (central line associated bloodstream infections) which occurred in our patients. We have maintained a rate of 0 CLABSI infections for more than 9 years and sustained that performance in 2024.  

Target: Maintain 0 infections
Outcome: 0 infections

Where does this data come from?

This quality and safety information is required for accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). CARF International is an independent, nonprofit accreditor of health and human services. We track this data using the WeeFIM, an outcomes assessment tool that allows us to compare our results with those of other pediatric inpatient rehabilitation programs around the country.

This information also includes data collected by our internal quality assurance and improvement programs.

Who do I contact if I have questions?

Talk with your child’s doctor or contact the Inpatient Rehabilitation Medicine Program at 206-987-2114.

What Seattle Children’s Measures and Why

We gather this data to: 

  • Measure the health of our patients
  • Improve the quality of the care we provide
  • Help you make informed decisions about your child’s care 

Learn more about outcomes at Seattle Children’s.

Updated March 2025.