Seattle Children’s Adds Eight New Operating Rooms at Main Campus

Seattle Children’s has opened eight new operating rooms (ORs) and two cath labs on two floors in our new building, Forest B. The addition of these new ORs marks a major expansion of our surgical capacity to meet the needs of our growing community.

Dedicated purposes

Two new ORs have adjacent cath labs and are dedicated to cardiovascular surgeries. Two more ORs are dedicated to neurosurgery cases, one OR is for complex general surgery, one is for orthopedic/spine cases and the remaining two ORs will handle other types of surgeries and urgent cases. One OR has an adjacent simulation room for training purposes.

Safety and air quality

To ensure a safe environment, the air supply for the ORs and cath labs is filtered through HEPA (99.97%) filters twice, once at the air handling unit prior to the air entering the duct system and a second time in the ceiling of each room just before the air enters the space.  Washington state code calls for one level of MERV 14 (90 to 95%) filtration in operating room environments either at the air handling unit or at the room.

Family-friendly

The new ORs are connected to induction rooms to allow for a patient to remain with their family/caregivers until they go to sleep.

Surgical support

Forest B’s two surgery floors each have a postanesthesia care unit (PACU) that contain six recovery rooms, including an isolation room. An OR pharmacy window in Forest B accommodates quick and efficient medication needs for Forest B surgery patients. The surgery floors on Forest B were specifically designed with consideration for optimal flows between the ORs and nearby sterile processing and supply chain spaces.

For More Information:  Read about Forest B or watch our video (3:47).