Rehabilitation Medicine

Inpatient Rehabilitation Medicine Statistics and Outcomes

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

Our Inpatient Rehabilitation Medicine Program includes a Trauma 1 Designated pediatric inpatient rehabilitation facility. Our staff have advanced training and certification in the unique rehabilitative needs of children and teens.

Our rehabilitation unit is accredited for pediatrics by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF). CARF International is an independent, nonprofit accreditor of health and human services. Our most recent CARF survey results placed us in the top 3% of pediatric rehabilitation programs in the nation.

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

Durability of Outcomes

“Durability of outcomes” refers to how well your child maintains or improves their performance after they have returned home from the hospital. It is a measure required for CARF accreditation. Your child’s functional skills, health status and levels of participation are evaluated at discharge and again at 90 days post-discharge, to determine whether they have been maintained or improved. We measure durability of outcomes in the following areas:

  • Environment: 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 2020 goal and were able to discharge 95.9% of patients to their homes rather than to other medical settings.

    2020
    >95%
    Goal
    95.9%
    Outcome

  • Health status: Percentage of patients who do not require hospitalization after returning home

    This table compares the percentage of Seattle Children’s patients who do not need to return to the hospital after being discharged, compared to patients at similar facilities. A higher rate is considered better. We met our 2020 goal of having a rate that was equal to or better than rates at similar facilities.

    2020
    92.6%
    Seattle Children’s
    83.9%
    Similar facilities

Average Length of Stay in 2020

“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 level.

  • All diagnoses

    19 days
    Average length of stay at Seattle Children’s
    22 days
    Average length of stay at similar facilities

  • Stroke

    20 days
    Average length of stay at Seattle Children’s
    22 days
    Average length of stay at similar facilities

Number of Patients in 2020 

Total number of new patients

103
Percentage of new patients by diagnosis
36%
Non-traumatic brain Injury or disease
15%
Traumatic brain injury
11%
Selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR)/single-event multilevel surgery (SEMLS)
7%
Non-traumatic spinal cord injury or disease
7%
Debility
3%
Traumatic spinal cord injury
9%
Stroke
Percentage of new patients by age
25%
0 to 5 years old
34%
5 to 12 years old
19%
12 to 15 years old
17%
15 to 18 years old
8%
18+
Average Hours of Therapy per Day by Diagnosis in 2020
3.6
Brain injury
3.9
Traumatic brain injury
3.8
Traumatic spinal cord injury or disease
3.5
Stroke
3.8
Selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR)/single-event multilevel surgery (SEMLS)

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

“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, social work and therapeutic recreation.

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%
Alaska
6%
Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and Utah
2%
Montana
14%
Eastern Washington
74%
Western Washington

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 2020 we measured progress on the following goals: 

Minimize discharges to long-term care facilities

Target: <5% of patients discharged to long-term care
Outcome: 0 patients discharged to long-term care

Minimize unplanned discharges

Target: None within 48 hours of admission to IPR
Outcome: 1 discharge within 48 hours of admission to IPR

Improve family satisfaction scores on discharge follow-up survey

Target: >94%
Outcome: >96%

Maintain 0 CLABSI infections

Target: Maintain 0 infections
Outcome: 0 infections

Where does this data come from?

This data reflects national metrics required 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 WeeFIM, an outcomes assessment tool that allows us to compare our results with those of other pediatric inpatient rehabilitation programs around the country.

This data also reflects information 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 May 2021.