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Putting learning into practice to innovate and improve patient services: A case study of Seattle’s Children’s Hospital

K. Fisher, J. Foti, J. Povick
Health Leads

Seattle Children’s Hospital provides compassionate care to more than 300,000 families across Washington, Alaska, Montana and Idaho – the largest region of any children’s hospital in the country. Consistently ranked as one of the highest quality children’s hospitals in the country, Seattle Children’s is committed to helping each child live the healthiest and most fulfilling life possible. A major piece of living their mission is working with community partners and hospital staff to ensure that resources and programs address the social, emotional, cultural, and environmental factors that support health and wellness.

Over the past several years, Seattle Children’s has been working to establish and develop its strategy to address the social factors that impact the health of children and families. To the leadership and staff at Seattle Children’s, it’s important that social health programs and approaches are effective and can be scaled across the organization and across the wide geographic region served, so that as many families as possible can benefit.

The health system embraces a culture that supports experimentation and failing fast – the concept of testing out new processes or activities on a small scale and adjusting or stopping the activity if it doesn’t yield the intended results. This had led to a learning lab approach across three interventions, where program teams are each experimenting and conducting research in their own areas, but openly sharing the results and learning to support overall progress and identify where to invest additional resources.

K. Fisher, J. Foti, J. Povick. Putting Learning into Practice to Innovate and Improve Patient Services: A Case Study of Seattle’s Children’s Hospital. Health Leads; February, 2020. Available online.

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