Swedish Medical Center

Swedish Medical Center is the largest nonprofit health provider in the greater Seattle area. It operates five hospital campuses (First Hill, Cherry Hill, Ballard, Edmonds and Issaquah); ambulatory care centers in Redmond and Mill Creek; and Swedish Medical Group, a network of more than 100 primary-care and specialty clinics. It is affiliated with many other health care providers across the state of Washington. As of 2013 it has 8,886 employees and 6,023 credentialed physicians.[2][3]

This article is about the hospital in Seattle, Washington. For the hospital in Englewood, Colorado, see Swedish Medical Center (Colorado). For hospitals in Sweden, see Category:Hospitals in Sweden.

Swedish Medical Center
Providence Health & Services
Swedish First Hill campus
Geography
LocationFirst Hill, Cherry Hill, Ballard, Edmonds, Issaquah, Mill Creek, Redmond, (SVNS), Seattle, Washington, United States
Coordinates47.6090°N 122.3228°W / 47.6090; -122.3228
Organization
Care systemPrivate, Non-Profit
TypeFull Service Inpatient and Outpatient Medical and Surgical Tertiary Care, Primary Care, Emergency and Urgent Care, Palliative Care
Services
Emergency departmentYes
Beds668[1]
History
Opened1910
Links
Websitewww.swedish.org
ListsHospitals in Washington

History

Dr. Nils August Johanson founded Swedish Medical Center in 1910 as Seattle's first modern nonprofit medical facility. Dr. Johanson was an immigrant from Sweden and was the father-in-law of Seattle businessman Elmer Nordstrom; the medical center's name pays tribute to Johanson's heritage. In 1932, Swedish opened the first cancer-care center west of the Mississippi.[4] The board of trustees for Swedish Hospital were historically of Swedish descent until the election of two non-Swede doctors in 1968.[5]

In 2009, Swedish partnered with The Polyclinic to implement electronic health records.[6]

In 2012, Swedish became affiliated with Providence Health & Services.[7] In 2014, Swedish formed new partnerships with Group Health Cooperative[8] and Pacific Medical Centers.[9]

COVID-19 pandemic

In 2020, administration at the hospital threatened to fire a physician for wearing personal protective equipment outside a patient care area during the COVID-19 pandemic.[10] The hospital has since backed down.[10] The hospital requires workers infected with coronavirus to exhaust sick and vacation time before they grant them 80 hours of emergency time off.[11]

Swedish Medical Center is one of only two hospitals in Washington that can perform extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and so it accepted patients with the most extreme cases of COVID-19 during the pandemic.[12] The hospital is performing clinical trials of Tocilizumab to counter the effects of a cytokine storm, an extreme immune reaction that occurs in the most extreme cases of COVID-19.[12]

References
  1. "History, Facts & Figures". Swedish Medical Center. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  2. "Swedish Medical Center". Hospital-data.com. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  3. "Swedish Medical Center". U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved January 20, 2016.
  4. "Swedish: A History of Excellence". Swedish Medical Center. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  5. "Non-Swedes Elected To Board of Hospital". The Seattle Times. December 18, 1968. p. 56.
  6. "Swedish partners with the Polyclinic". Swedish Blog.
  7. Ostrom, Carol (February 1, 2012). "Swedish alliance with Providence is now complete". The Seattle Times. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  8. Lamm, Greg (August 22, 2014). "Group Health ends 20-year relationship with Virginia Mason, switches to Swedish". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  9. Bauman, Valerie (February 3, 2014). "Providence will partner with PacMed, reveals how it keeps religion separate". www.bizjournals.com. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  10. Richtel, Matt (March 31, 2020). "Frightened Doctors Face Off With Hospitals Over Rules on Protective Gear". New York Times. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
  11. "'It's Like Walking Into Chernobyl,' One Doctor Says Of Her Emergency Room". NPR.org. Retrieved April 15, 2020.
  12. "'I Felt Like Rip Van Winkle': One Of The 1st U.S. Doctors With COVID-19 Is Back Home". NPR.org. Retrieved April 15, 2020.

Sources
  • Nordstrom, Katharine Johanson; Marshall, Margaret (2002) My Father's Legacy: The Story of Doctor Nils August Johanson, Founder of Swedish Medical (University of Washington Press) ISBN 978-0295982656
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