Advancing Our Mission: Transforming Child Health

Here is an overview of how the four Mission Objectives and two Strategic Imperatives come together. Each initiative represents a vital need for our patients and our organization, as we strive for daily improvement and apply an equity lens across all that we do.

Destination Center

Seattle Children’s is recognized as one of the world’s leading pediatric medical and research centers. We aim to enhance our reputation as a world-class destination center by:

• Growing our destination programs by delivering exceptional care, novel therapies and life-saving treatments
• Providing the best experiences and best possible outcomes
• Establishing system-wide capabilities to advance the delivery of complex care and accelerate clinical research and innovation

Ecosystem of Care

Access and convenience are paramount to what care a kid receives and where they receive it. We must bring the expertise and compassionate care of Seattle Children’s closer to our patients and their families. We’re doing this by:

• Innovating and growing our service offerings to ensure that patients are seen in the right place and at the right time, including primary care
• Providing care closer to home by rapidly expanding ambulatory telehealth and virtual care across our health system
• Expanding affiliate relationships to strengthen and enhance our service offerings
• Integrating research opportunities directly into our regional ambulatory clinics

Therapeutics

Children deserve to lead healthy lives and to achieve their full potential. All too frequently the diseases they’re diagnosed with don’t have medicines to heal and cure them. Seattle Children’s aims to change this by:

• Being a first-in-class organization that leads the development of novel biomedicines for children
• Vertically integrating a state-of-the-art GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) by leveraging the in-house expertise that has produced 14 FDA-authorized investigational new drug applications
• Providing a top-rated hospital venue for pediatric clinical trials
• Accelerating research innovations in cancer and other debilitating childhood diseases by organizing our therapeutic assets into a biotech-like format

Learn about Seattle Children’s Therapeutics.

Mental & Behavioral Health

We are responding to the urgent youth mental health crisis in our communities. This effort relies on a well-constructed continuum of care that includes early intervention, integrated services, improved access and better outcomes. We’re doing this by:

• Bringing whole health care closer to home by developing services and capabilities in the geographies of greatest need
• Expanding outpatient services to improve children’s health and therefore reduce emergency department and inpatient demand
• Ensuring seamless transitions across the continuum of care
• Expanding our focus to include upstream interventions that will improve long-term outcomes
• Promoting access, diversity and equity across the continuum of care

Learn more about Generation REACH and how you can join the coalition to reimagine youth mental health care.

Quality & Safety

Seattle Children’s is committed to delivering unsurpassed quality to every patient, every time. Our work focuses on:

• Creating a better patient and family experience by providing a leading example among children’s hospitals in the nation
• Developing and supporting an engaged workforce that is focused on quality and patient safety
• Establishing equitable clinical excellence where patient outcomes are viewed as the ultimate proof of our success
• Delivering on our commitment to cause zero harm to our patients which includes physical, psychological and emotional harm
• Sharing knowledge, sharing expertise and learning from others — inside and outside Seattle Children’s — to continual quality improvement

Improving child health requires a laser focus on quality improvement, patient safety and equity so that every patient can experience the best possible outcomes.

Health Equity and Anti-Racism Action Plan

Seattle Children’s is committed to anti-racism and accelerating our pursuit of health equity while building a diverse and inclusive workforce that reflects our patients, families and community. We endeavor to do this by:

• Enforcing no tolerance of racist and discriminatory treatment of our patients and families
• Developing and upholding clear anti-racist policies that reinforce no tolerance for workplace violence, racism or hate speech between team members
• Having a clear strategy and detailed policies to address concerns about bias, racism and discrimination regarding faculty or medical staff
• Abolishing the Code Purple system and replacing it with an equitable and anti-racist structure that is co-created with Seattle Children’s workforce and families.
• Holding divisions and departments accountable to review and adjust policies that inadvertently discriminate against patients by language, race, religion or income