Seattle Children’s and EvergreenHealth Affiliation Expand Care Capabilities

Since EvergreenHealth and Seattle Children’s entered into a strategic affiliation to enhance specialty care, the organizations have increased access to advanced neonatal and pediatric care in the region. This includes enhanced care capabilities for treating patients with faltering growth, the successful launch of therapeutic hypothermia (neuro-cooling), NICU-based teleconsults for neurology and general surgery and complete integration into Seattle Children’s Mission Control. This expansion of services increases access to world-class expertise, strengthening EvergreenHealth’s ability to care for higher-acuity neonatal and pediatric patients in their community.

Reducing Patient Transfers With Real-Time Access to Experts

Since the program's inception, NICU patients at EvergreenHealth who need therapeutic hypothermia have received this specialized therapy that reduces the risk of long-term damage and improves the chance of healthy development. This service previously required the patient to be transferred, separating the family right after birth. In some cases, this also meant newborns were starting this cooling process during transfer.

With this advanced therapy now available at EvergreenHealth, staff have been able to collaborate directly with Seattle Children’s neonatal neurology experts through real-time teleconsults and provide high-quality, specialized care in their facility, keeping families together and minimizing the need for unnecessary transfers and disruptions.

Jan Martin, MD, director of Teleneurology at Seattle Children’s and the medical director of Neonatal Neurology at EvergreenHealth shares that keeping families together is an honor.

“My maxim for our Neuro NICU telehealth program has been ‘if we can prevent one unnecessary transfer, we’ve won the game,’ and I’m thrilled to see that realized through our partnership with EvergreenHealth. Keeping babies with their families from the first days of life is so important for the whole family’s health, so the ability to provide the same high-quality neurological care at EvergreenHealth that we do at Seattle Children’s is such a worthy effort and a testament to the commitment of everyone involved in achieving this goal for our patients. I feel honored to be part of this program,” said Dr. Martin.

In January 2026, the affiliation also launched NICU teleconsults for general surgery. Pediatric surgeons from Seattle Children’s are now available via telehealth to consult on NICU patients at EvergreenHealth, providing subspecialty expertise for non-emergent conditions without requiring an automatic transfer to a different facility.

While this initiative helps many families stay at EvergreenHealth, patients requiring emergent surgical intervention or those with high clinical acuity will continue to be stabilized and transferred to Seattle Children’s for comprehensive care. This collaborative model ensures that specialized resources are prioritized for the most complex cases while keeping stable infants close to home.

Along with the successful implementation of NICU teleconsults, Seattle Children’s continues to share clinical protocols and provide specialized training to EvergreenHealth staff. These enhanced practices have helped EvergreenHealth provide advanced care to patients in their Inpatient Pediatric Unit with faltering growth, a condition where a patient’s weight gain or overall growth trajectory does not progress as expected over time.

Streamlined Patient Admission Process

As a reminder, Seattle Children’s Mission Control team has now fully integrated EvergreenHealth into the transfer triage process. This integration strengthens regional coordination and ensures that appropriate patients are directed to the 13-bed pediatric unit at EvergreenHealth when clinically indicated. This allows both organizations to help more families access advanced care where and when they need it.

Call Mission Control at 206-987-8899 if you are sending or expect to send a patient to the hospital ED or for admission. An experienced Transfer Center RN will help coordinate admission to provide seamless patient flow across the continuum of care to ensure every patient is in the right place, at the right time and receives the right level of care.

Looking Ahead

The shared goal remains simple: increase access close to home, reduce unnecessary transfers and keep families together whenever possible.

Service rollout is being sequenced thoughtfully to ensure high-quality implementation and sustainable growth. Upcoming services include:

• Expanding Seattle Children’s on-site pediatric hospitalists to provide coverage 24 hours a day, seven days a week
• Continued refinement of Epic and Mission Control workflows to streamline documentation and coordination

Learn More

Additional information will be shared in future editions of Provider News as the services mentioned above are launched. Read the EvergreenHealth, Seattle Children’s Expand Affiliation to Provide Advanced Neonatal & Pediatric Care on the Eastside initial press release for additional information about this affiliation.