The Division of Emergency Medicine provides 24-hours per day, 365 days per year pediatric acute care for local and regional children from birth through age 21. Emergency Services provides specialized physician, nursing, social, and environmental expertise in the management of urgent, emergency, and critical pediatric medical and surgical issues.
Emergency Medicine is dedicated to providing premier quality, up-to-date, consistent, safe, and efficient pediatric emergency care in a family-centered environment. Emergency Medicine is actively refining its operation, standards, and facilities to ensure the highest quality of care and optimal practice. This focus on excellence and process improvement, both within the division and with our care delivery partners, has produced consistent, outstanding results relating to quality of care, patient satisfaction, length of stay, and other metrics of emergency medical care quality and service. We currently operate 44 dedicated ED beds. Our ED-based fast track is staffed from 5 pm to 2 am, 7 days a week. Separate Urgent Care practices ensure consistent high quality care. Expanded physical and operational capacity, and the corresponding increase in physician, nursing, and administrative services have greatly improved our ability to respond effectively to our patients and community and ensure optimal quality and efficiency.
Emergency Medicine treats approximately 65,000 patients per year, with half of all patients who are admitted to Children's Hospital initially cared for in the emergency department.
We are a center for resident and other medical staff education in the acute management of ill and injured infants, children, and adolescents. Over 200 residents and students from the University of Washington pediatric and emergency medicine training programs as well as multiple family medicine programs train in our division each year. We are very invested in the education of medical, nursing, nurse practitioner, physician assistant, and paramedic students. These educational experiences all include a didactic curriculum and significant hands-on training. Faculty members participate actively in education from the local to the international level. The division sponsors an ACGME-approved three-year pediatric emergency medicine fellowship program, currently providing training opportunities to three fellows per year. These fellows come from a background of either pediatrics or emergency medicine.
Forty faculty physicians and approximately 30 clinical pediatric providers provide care in the Emergency Department. Faculty physicians hold leadership positions in local, university, state, national, and international organizations. Division faculty are involved in primary and collaborative clinical research, focusing on education, sedation, respiratory illnesses, infectious diseases, injury management, injury prevention, informatics, quality, resuscitation, transport medicine, safety, and global childhood malnutrition. A large staff of grant funded research associates supports the commitment to clinical research.
Our pediatric emergency department is located at Seattle Children's Hospital that is affiliated with the University of Washington. We provide 24-hour, seven days a week care for children in an acute or crisis situation. Separate pediatric Urgent Care is available at our Bellevue Center, North Clinic in Everett, South Clinic in Federal Way, as well as the Seattle Children’s Hospital location.
Research interests
Emergency Medicine Faculty in the Department of Pediatrics conduct research on problems related to the health and emergency care of children and adolescents. Specific areas of study include: infectious disease, vaccines, drowning and prevention, pediatric resuscitation, simulation, analgesia and sedation, musculoskeletal injuries, patient safety, medical education, mental health, management of medical complexity and use of interpretation.
Seattle Children’s leads the STELAR research node of PECARN (Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network).
Global health research interests include: translation & disparities research, virtual simulation curriculum development and implementation, collaborative projects with PECC-Kenya fellowship, and childhood malnutrition in LMICs.
ED Research Team
Co-directors: Eileen Klein and Julie Brown
Research Manager: Bonnie Strelitz
Clinical Research Coordinators: Cynthia Tran, Catherine Nguyen, Rebecca Wilbur, Monet Tosch-Berneburg, Taylor Odom, Talia Park
The fellowship in Pediatric Emergency Medicine is a 3-year program that combines clinical education in pediatric emergency medicine along with an emphasis on clinical research. Our fellowship offers the opportunity to obtain an MPH and all fellows may take classes at the University of Washington School of Public Health. We accept three fellows each year. We use our resources to provide an excellent clinical and research education to our fellows.
More information can be found on the Pediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship page.
George (Tony) A. Woodward, MD, MBA
Professor Division Head, Emergency Medicine Medical Director, Emergency Services
Kimberly P Stone, MD, MS, MA
Associate Head, Emergency Medicine Clinical Operations and Process Improvement Clinical Director, Emergency Services Associate Professor
Eileen J. Klein, MD, MPH
Professor Associate PEM Head for Faculty Affairs and Development PECARN, STELAR node PI
Seattle Children's Hospital
4800 Sand Point Way NE
Box 359300; MS MB.7.520
Seattle, WA 98105
(206) 987-2599