Seattle Children’s Institute for Pediatric Innovation

Accelerating Our Mission: The Future of Pediatric Care

The Institute for Pediatric Innovation drives Seattle Children’s strategic plan by unifying clinical expertise, world-class research and technology infrastructure into a single ecosystem. It empowers our teams to actively create a better future for every child.

We are building on decades of innovation to define the future of pediatric healthcare, thus setting the stage for what pediatric care and innovation can be. To discuss how we can innovate and advance pediatric care together, reach out to our Office of Innovation and New Ventures at [email protected].

8 Innovation Focus Areas

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Digital Health

Developing, validating and implementing AI technology that supports research discoveries, operational excellence and clinical outcome improvement in pediatrics.

Industry Partnerships

Connecting Children's discoveries and innovations with the partners who can accelerate them to impact patient care.

Innovation Care Unit

A dedicated space to enable frontline teams to pilot novel workflows and care models in real time, with patient safety at the forefront.

Medical Device Innovation

Developing specialized medical technologies to solve unmet pediatric needs, bringing clinicians, engineers, researchers and industry partners together to translate ideas from concept to clinical validation and commercialization.

Precision Medicine

Accelerating genomic and data-driven therapies for rare and complex conditions.

Research Informatics and Advanced Computing

Integrating and harmonizing complex biomedical data to accelerate discovery and improve patient care.

Therapeutics

Discovering, developing and testing next-generation cell, gene and protein therapies right here at Children's to bring safe, lifesaving cures from the lab bench to the patient’s bedside faster.

Training the Next Generation

Through the Invent@SC program, Seattle Children's provides mentorship, education and other resources to early-career scientists and clinicians. These efforts empower emerging talent to invent “discovered here” therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostics for clinical development in the biotech or global health spheres.

Safety-First Governance

Every Institute project undergoes rigorous review through Seattle Children’s AI Review Board (AIRB), and those that involve research (in whole or in part) will undergo review by the Institutional Review Board (IRB):

AI Review Board (AIRB): Ensures all artificial intelligence and technology tools are used ethically, equitably, and responsibly, protecting patient privacy while preventing bias in clinical care.
Institutional Review Board (IRB): A dedicated committee established per federal regulations to protect the rights, health, and overall welfare of the children and families who participate in research activities across Seattle Children's.

Innovation Highlights

Therapeutics and Cellular Innovation: Developing Personalized Therapies for Children

Grounded in our vision to make every rare condition treatable, our researchers are developing novel investigational therapies and leading clinical trials to test these therapies in areas like cancer and lupus.

Unifying Pediatric Epilepsy Data

Seattle Children’s is building a secure database to unify clinical records, genomics, brainwaves and other data for pediatric epilepsy, supported by an Amazon Web Services Imagine Grant. Harmonizing this data enables intelligent and accelerated research to improve patient care.

Ambient AI: Returning Focus to Patients and Families

To ensure clinicians spend more face-to-face time with patients, Seattle Children’s implemented Abridge, a secure ambient listening tool. During appointments, it drafts clinical documentation in the background so providers focus entirely on families rather than typing on a screen.

Image Anonymization: Protecting Privacy to Speed Up Cures

Before studying medical images like X-rays or MRIs, personal data must be removed. Seattle Children’s is piloting an automated tool that creates secure, anonymous image twins in under 5 minutes, replacing a 2-hour manual process and accelerating lifesaving research.

Guiding Electronic Health Record Development for Pediatrics

Seattle Children’s is the first pediatric healthcare organization to pilot MyChart Emmie™, Epic’s patient-facing AI assistant for navigating health information. Through this collaboration, Seattle Children’s helps shape the tool to meet the needs of patients and care teams.

AI Validation in Pediatrics: Leading the Way for Pediatric AI Evaluation

By developing a framework to test AI tools in non-production environment, adjust safety check strategies based on risk, and continuously performance over time, this plan ensures promising technology quickly, safely and consistently improves patient health outcomes.

To discuss how we can innovate and advance pediatric care together, reach out to our Office of Innovation and New Ventures at [email protected].