Northwest Hospital & Medical Center

Northwest Hospital & Medical Center
UW Medicine
Northwest Hospital & Medical Center
Geography
Location	1550 N 115th Street, Seattle, Washington, United States
Organisation
Funding	Non-profit hospital
Affiliated university	University of Washington
Services
Emergency department	Level IV trauma center Level I primary stroke center
Beds	281
History
Founded	1960
Links
Website	Northwest Hospital
Other links	List of hospitals in Washington

Level IV trauma center

Northwest Hospital & Medical Center is a 281-bed hospital in Seattle, Washington. On September 17, 2009, it announced that as of January 1, 2010 it would become part of UW Medicine, associated with the University of Washington. UW Medicine also includes University of Washington Medical Center, Harborview Medical Center, the UW School of Medicine and several smaller entities. Prior to the merger, a 1997 agreement had already made Northwest the home for a UW Medicine cardiac surgery program.

In 1949, the "Community Memorial" Hospital Association purchased a 33-acre (13 ha) tract in North Seattle. Northwest Hospital opened in 1960, as the city's northernmost hospital. In 1965 the hospital acquired a radioisotope magna scanner, and over the rest of the 1960s they established a comprehensive rehabilitation program (1967), an inhalation therapy department (1967), a program for hearing disorders (1968), and a stroke center (1969). In 1970, they were the first Seattle hospital with a birth clinic offering the use of a single "birth suite" for labor, delivery, recovery, and postpartum care.

The 1970s saw physical expansion of the emergency department (1973), the opening of a department of nuclear medicine (1971), and the 1977 establishment of the Northwest Hospital Foundation. Physical expansion continued in the 1980s with a new tower building (1983). In 1985, Northwest Hospital physicians pioneered the ultrasound-guided installation of a radioactive "seed" implant to treat prostate cancer. In 1993 they were the region's first hospital to offer the non-surgical gamma knife technique of treating brain tumors.