Medical facilities of Seattle

Harborview Medical Center sits on a hill above Downtown Seattle.

This is the main article on the medical facilities of Seattle, Washington. Seattle, USA is well served medically. The University of Washington is consistently ranked among the country's dozen leading institutions in medical research; Group Health Cooperative was one of the pioneers of managed care in the United States; and Seattle was a pioneer in the development of modern paramedic services with the establishment of Medic One in 1970.

Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Laurelhurst is the pediatric referral center for Washington, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho. Harborview Medical Center, the public county hospital, located on First Hill, is the only Level I trauma hospital serving those same four states. Harborview and the University of Washington Medical Center on the U.W. campus are closely tied, with one physician group serving both hospitals.

Other hospitals in the community include Swedish Medical Center/Ballard, Swedish Medical Center/First Hill, and Swedish Medical Center/Cherry Hill; Virginia Mason Hospital, on First Hill; the Seattle Division of the Department of Veterans Affairs' Puget Sound Health Care System on Beacon Hill; the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Cascade; Group Health Central Hospital and Family Health Center on Capitol Hill; and Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Haller Lake.

The Odessa Brown Clinic, in a former synagogue in the Central District.

First Hill is widely known as "Pill Hill" for its concentration of hospitals and other medical offices. In addition to being the current home of Harborview, Swedish, and Virginia Mason, it is also the former location of Providence, Maynard, Seattle General, and Doctors Hospitals (all of which merged into Swedish) and Cabrini Hospital.

In 1974, a 60 Minutes story on the success of the then four-year-old Medic One paramedic system called Seattle "the best place in the world to have a heart attack." Some accounts report that Puyallup, a city south of Seattle, was the first place west of the Mississippi River to have 911 emergency telephone service. Seattle and King County provide extended 911 services, with sufficient operators to allow calls to 911 even in non-emergency situations; calls are then appropriately dispatched.

See also

• List of hospitals in Washington