In this blog post series were taking a look at some numbers that show why Seattle Children’s needs to expand and grow in order to meet the needs of patients and their families.
During Fiscal Year 2011 (Oct. 1 through Sept. 30), here were the top 10 reasons that patients were admitted to the hospital, along with the number of patients who had those conditions:
1. Asthma: 483
2. Chemotherapy: 426
3. Bronchiolitis/RSV: 425
4. Seizure: 349
5. Acute Gastroenteritis: 276
6. Acute Appendicitis: 267
7. Bacterial Pneumonia: 261
8. Cleft Lip/Palate: 241
9. Cellulitis (skin infections): 230
10. Complications From Diabetes: 227
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Seattle Children’s recently launched the Opinion Sandbox, an online panel of parents who volunteer their time by taking one to two brief online surveys each month on a variety of topics.
If you are a parent of at least one child age 0 to 21 who lives at home and you reside in Washington state, we would love to have you participate! (You do not need to have a child who has been a patient at Children’s; Children’s staff and faculty are not eligible.) The only information we collect from you is your email address and first name. Read full post »

I love hats! You’ll never see me anywhere without my own special red and white stripey hat. Did you know that you can sometimes tell what a construction worker does for their job, just by looking at the color of their hard hat? Now when you watch the workers, you might be able to guess what they’re working on from this clue. Different colors help everyone know who does what, and also know where everyone is. That’s helpful on a big construction site. Sometimes workers need to be tested and licensed to do certain jobs before they can wear the correct colored hard hat. A hat can tell you a lot about someone! Read full post »
Recently, Seattle Children’s held a design event to begin planning the gym for cancer patients that will be part of the Building Hope expansion.
Occupational and physical therapists, along with staff from Infection Prevention and Children’s Family Resource Center, worked together to come up with ideas and designs that would benefit patients, their families and staff. Read full post »
Seattle Children’s is a busy place, serving patients and families from a very large geographic region: Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho. In this “Seattle Children’s By the Numbers” blog post series, we’ll share some of the statistics that shed light on why we need to expand and grow. Read full post »
Puget Sound Energy (PSE), working with their contractor, will begin construction on a new natural gas line that runs along 40th Ave. NE on Jan. 16. Work is expected to take about two weeks to complete. Some street parking along 40th Ave. NE will be unavailable during this time, and there may be some brief traffic delays. PSE will have flaggers onsite to manage traffic as needed. Read full post »


In November we shared how at the end of each steel project, The Erection Company (TEC) creates a “topping out” T-shirt for their crew. For Building Hope, TEC invited Seattle Children’s patients to submit design ideas for the T-shirt and 11-year-old Zoe Ballard-Huffman’s design was chosen as the winner. Read full post »

Work is underway on the sky bridges that connect Seattle Children’s current facility with the Building Hope expansion. These will incorporate natural light, art and interactive elements to encourage patients, families and visitors to pause, appreciate the beautiful views and enjoy a respite from their rooms. Read full post »

Seattle Children’s places a lot of emphasis on encouraging employees to find alternative ways to commute, rather than driving alone. We are committed to reducing traffic in the neighborhood around the hospital campus; we want to be good stewards of our environment by reducing vehicle emissions; and we want to use our resources to care for patients – not create more parking spaces. Read full post »