Harborview Medical Center is one of the nation’s leading hospitals and the only Level I adult and pediatric trauma and burn center serving Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho (WAMI). The medical center offers highly specialized services such as trauma and burn care, as well as neurosurgery, eye care, vascular, rehabilitation, sleep medicine and spine care.
Harborview received the 2007 Foster G. McGaw Prize for Excellence in Community Service in recognition of the important role Harborview plays in delivering high quality health care throughout the community. In addition, U.S. News & World Report’s 2010 America’s Best Hospitals ranked Harborview among the nation’s top three hospitals in rehabilitation care and among the top 20 in neurology, neurosurgery, orthopaedics and geriatrics.
The medical center is owned by King County, governed by a board of trustees appointed by the county and managed by the University of Washington. It is one of four hospitals in the UW Medicine Health System, which also includes Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, Valley Medical Center, UW Medical Center, UW Neighborhood Clinics, UW School of Medicine, UW Physicians, and Airlift Northwest, an emergency air transport service that serves the WAMI region. Harborview has a specific mission to car
e for the community’s most vulnerable patients. It also is the Disaster Control Hospital for Seattle and King County.
Report to the Community
Key Centers of Excellence
- Level I adult and pediatric trauma and burn care
- Neurosciences Institute
- Orthopaedic reconstruction and rehabilitation
- Comprehensive Eye Institute and vision science center
- Vascular
- Behavioral health
- AIDS/STD
2010 Statistics
| Licensed beds |
413 |
| Employees |
4,619 |
| Physicians |
1,243 |
| Admissions |
19,578 |
| Emergency Department visits |
62,172 |
| Clinic visits |
246,420 |
| Surgery cases |
14,872 |
Charity Care
Provided $187 million in charity care in fiscal year 2010.
Medical Firsts
As faculty members at the UW School of Medicine, Harborview physicians also teach the next generation of health-care professionals, advance medical discovery and set the standard of care worldwide. Our physicians have:
- Founded Medic One emergency response with Seattle Fire Department
- Developed safer neurosurgery techniques, including brain mapping
- Pioneered treatments for patients with acute respiratory distress disease
- Led many advances in multidisciplinary critical care for clots, sepsis, organ failure, lung disease, inflammation and infections
- Established the use of transcranial Doppler to determine if brain vessels have been damaged by trauma
- Refined methods for burn treatment using artificial skin grafts to improve survival
History
Harborview began in 1877 as a six-bed King County Hospital in South Seattle. In 1931, the hospital moved to its present location overlooking Puget Sound and changed its name to Harborview Hospital. Since then, Harborview Medical Center has become a leading medical center and expanded its facilities through voter-approved bond projects and Harborview reserve funds. The Ninth and Jefferson Building, which opened in 2009, houses expanded specialty care services, providing greater access to medical experts in key areas.