When families walk into the new 32,000-square-foot Seattle Children’s South Clinic, they’ll see elements of home.
“The color scheme for this building is based on Dash Point Park,” said Seattle Children’s South Sound clinic Director Katherine Flynn, noting that a designer took photos of the water, sand, weathered wood of bridges and trees and forest for inspiration.
Like all Seattle Children’s facilities, the atmosphere is catered to children.
“As you come through the doors you’ll see our beige brown, color of sand and starfish that helps our families line up to get checked in,” Flynn continued. “The artwork has elements of sky and birds and water and then, as you come across the waiting area, you’ll move on to what looks like the boards and the carpet that mimics weathered wood.”
Images of animals, flowers and plants are also abundant.
But the apparent northwest theme of the Federal Way-based South Clinic, set to open Aug. 18, is not what makes it special.
The new clinic will provide 26 exam rooms and four treatment spaces with a capacity of 204, excluding the capacity of the therapy gym. This is compared to the current Seattle Children’s South Clinic on the St. Francis Hospital campus, which has six exam rooms and a capacity of 48. That clinic will close on Aug. 12.
Located at 34920 Enchanted Parkway South in Federal Way, the clinic will offer an urgent care open Monday through Friday from 5-10:30 p.m., weekends and holidays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., with no appointments or referrals needed, and 15 departments specializing in specific treatments and services.
“Much improved access,” Flynn said when asked what this means for families. “It’s a clinic that brings to the community the same things that we’ve been asked for in our smaller clinic to date.”
Flynn said there will be more gastrointestinal services, adolescent medicine, infusions and a pediatric lab with a phlebotomist compared to the smaller clinic.
“Much improved access to therapies, our occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech and sports therapies,” she said. “We have a huge rehab and functional gym at our facility. This is the first time. This particular space is larger, in terms of our therapy area, than the floor space and the equipment than we have in our other regional areas.”
Flynn said families throughout the years have said more Children’s services are needed in South King County.
“As one of the regional managers, the regional managers meet very frequently and we would all talk about what the needs were in our area, meaning that families are saying, ‘There’s not enough G.I.’ or ‘it’s really hard to get into see adolescent medicine, can we get more service here?’ and that’s happened over and over.”
Flynn said they paid attention to those requests and started to “lobby up the chain” to ask for more access to providers and space.
“A lot of things begin and end here,” she said, referring to Federal Way. “It’s a huge transportation corridor here, so this is a great location to help our families who are coming from east and west on [Highway] 18 as well as the commute sometimes from West Seattle or South Seattle, it can be easier to come here than go through downtown.”
Other clinics are located in Everett, Bellevue, Olympia, Mill Creek, Tri-Cities and Wenatchee, in addition to Seattle Children’s Hospital in Seattle.
A huge request was moving infusions south of the Seattle Children’s Hospital and Bellevue clinic, as they “didn’t have anything at all,” Flynn said.
Also new? The ability to conduct an electroencephalogram, a test that detects electrical activity in the brain using small electrodes attached to a person’s scalp.
“Our kids who were seen in our neurology clinics and needed an [electroencephalogram] had to go to Seattle or go to Everett or Bellevue and now they can stay south,” Flynn said, adding that ultrasounds, an on-site nutritionist and social worker are also new to the South Clinic.
Oncology patients will continue to go to Seattle Children’s Hospital, but Flynn clarified, “We don’t say if you’re not more sick you go here or go there. That’s definitely not the case.”
However, the acuity of the patients who walk into the clinic will be similar, she said.
And, for those who do walk in, registration is easily accessible at the front of the clinic with the lab at the front and radiology nestled between two team rooms.
“The team room concept allows our clinical team to spend time together talking about patients and their needs, understanding how we can help the care team each day, how they will help support these families and then there’s room in our team rooms now to have nutrition and social work join us,” Flynn said.
The clinic will also feature a play room but Flynn said it won’t be completed by the clinic’s opening. She anticipates it will be finished in a couple of months.
“That’s a space where, our kids who are here frequently, their siblings can come and play while they’re in their visit or they’re in their therapy,” she said. “We put some healthy snacks and machines up front and there’s a little homework area with tables and chairs.”
Although the clinic will open Aug. 18, the annual community open house that’s typically at Seattle Children’s Hospital will be hosted at Seattle Children’s South Clinic from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sept. 12. The free event will include several booths, fun activities for children, live music and a tour of the new clinic.
Children may also bring a doll or teddy bear for a “check-up” at the Teddy Bear Clinic and children age 1-18 years old can get fitted for a free bike helmet, provided by Kohl’s Helmet Safety Program. There will be Zumba dance fitness instruction and the gym will feature an obstacle course.
The clinic’s specialty services include the following: adolescent medicine, cardiology (including fetal and pediatric echocardiography), dermatology, endocrinology/diabetes, gastroenterology, laboratory and pathology, nephrology, neurodevelopmental, neurology (including electroencephalogram or EEG), nutrition, occupational therapy, orthopedics, pediatric general and thoracic surgery (clinic only), physical therapy, pulmonolgy, radiology, rehabilitation medicine, social work, speech and language services (excluding videoflurorscopic swallowing studies, sports medicine, sports physical therapy, telemedicine and urology.
For more information, visit www.seattlechildrens.org/contact/south-clinic-federal-way.
