Harborview Medical Center

Harborview Medical Center, located on Seattle's First Hill, is a public hospital in King County, Washington and is managed by UW Medicine.

Harborview Medical Center
UW Medicine
Geography
Location325 Ninth Avenue,
Seattle, Washington,
 United States
Coordinates47.60396°N 122.32435°W / 47.60396; -122.32435
Organisation
Care systemPublic, Medicaid, Medicare
TypeTeaching
Affiliated universityUniversity of Washington
Services
Emergency departmentLevel I trauma center
Beds413
HelipadFAA LID: WA53
History
Opened1877
Links
WebsiteUW Medicine - HMC
Other linksList of hospitals in Washington

Overview
Harborview Medical Center seen from the front entrance.

Harborview Medical Center is the designated Disaster Control Hospital for Seattle and King County, as it has the only Level I adult and pediatric trauma and burn center in Washington,[1] and also serves the states of Alaska, Idaho, and Montana.[2] Its burn center is one of the largest in the United States, specializing in pioneering treatments, including the use of artificial skin products, which have cut mortality rates dramatically for severely burned patients.

Harborview's Center for Sexual Assault provides medical and counseling services to sexual assault victims and their families. Thousands of patients are treated each year in Harborview's Neurosurgery Department for disorders of the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves, including head and spinal cord injuries, stroke, brain tumors, degenerative disc disease, and spinal disc herniations. Its orthopedics service has often been listed as one of the top 10 services of its kind in the country by U.S. News and World Report.

Harborview's operating budget for fiscal year 2007 was $568 million and income from operations was $585 million.

Harborview was instrumental in establishing Medic One, one of the country's first paramedic response programs. Many of Washington State's emergency medical service technicians are trained at Harborview. Harborview is also the principal clinical site for the University of Washington's center for AIDS research. The Madison Clinic, Harborview's outpatient facility, is the largest single provider of AIDS care in King County.

History

The hospital was founded in 1877 as King County Hospital, a six-bed welfare hospital in a two-story south Seattle building. By 1906, it had moved into a new building in Georgetown, with room for 225 patients. Another move occurred in 1931, when the center wing of the present hospital on First Hill was completed, and the hospital's name was changed to Harborview.

Harborview's Center for Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress was established in 1973.

Harborview is the subject of Audrey Young's book House of Hope and Fear,[3] and the Mark Lanegan song "Harborview Hospital".

In the 2005 ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy Seattle Grace Hospital was based on Harborview Medical Center.[4] It is also in the television show Private Practice, a Grey's Anatomy spinoff. Over the course of Grey's Anatomy, there were two other hospital names in the same hospital based on Harborview, Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital, and Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.

Harborview also appears in the two-hour special "Most Deadly Passage" of the series Emergency!, where main characters John Gage and Roy DeSoto visit Seattle to see how the paramedics of the Seattle Fire Department handle their calls compared to the ones Gage and DeSoto deal with back in Los Angeles County.

References
  1. "Trauma Centers". Wsha.org. Archived from the original on 2011-06-03. Retrieved 2012-07-07.
  2. "About Harborview Medical Center | UW Medicine, Seattle". Archived from the original on 2013-04-16. Retrieved 2010-11-30.
  3. Cynthia Rekdal. "The House of Hope and Fear: Life in a Big City Hospital". The International Examiner. Retrieved June 10, 2012.
  4. Hannah Hickey (August 30, 2007). "Star Trek medical device uses ultrasound to seal punctured lungs". UW News. University of Washington.
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