May 5, 2015

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What happens when more than 65 people collaborate in one room for intensive, weeklong brainstorming sessions? A plethora of creative solutions to optimize the delivery of care to critically ill patients.

Last month, Texas Children’s Business Process Transformation Department organized Blitz Week to develop an alternative stacking solution and identify design requirements for the 19-floor expansion of Pediatric Tower E next to Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women.

The 25-floor tower, which is slated for completion in 2018, will house a 130-bed intensive care unit, new operating rooms with the latest technology, and the Heart Center, which includes the cardiovascular operating rooms and the cardiovascular intensive care units. The roof of the tower will feature a helipad to transport critically ill patients to Texas Children’s.

To ensure that functionality drives the design of the new pediatric tower, an Interdisciplinary Work Group was formed comprised of key players representing different specialty areas of the hospital including clinical care, pharmacy, radiology, anesthesiology, surgery, family patient services, emergency center, blood bank, supply chain and the Heart Center.

Prior to Blitz Week, the group assembled into specialized teams to map out how they would respond to seven complex patient care scenarios. The teams reconvened during Blitz Week to share their current work flow process using a spaghetti diagram and compared it to the initial stacking diagram to determine what design changes need to be made to enhance operational efficiency and overall patient experience in the new pediatric tower.

“Putting all key players in the same room at the same time was powerful,” said Melanie Lowther, director of Business Process Transformation at Texas Children’s. “After spending more than 35 hours with bedside and support staff, and reviewing more than 150 workflows in one week, we generated creative solutions and requirements to help architects develop a better and more functional schematic design.”

The Super User Committee endorsed these recommendations from Blitz Week:

  • Implement an internal transport team to safely shuttle patients between floors in the pediatric tower
  • Reshuffle the Heart Center for better adjacencies by having cardiovascular operating rooms and cardiovascular intensive care units located on the same floor, and construct a separate MRI in the Heart Center.
  • Separate outpatient and inpatient radiology for all modalities to optimize patient care work flow processes
  • Build call rooms to be co-located with each service area instead of grouped in one location
  • Revise stack diagram to include Critical Care Medicine offices

During the initial design development process, the Interdisciplinary Work Group and Texas Children’s Simulation Center engaged in table-top simulated scenarios to prepare for potential emergency management situations.

Lowther says once the architects create the initial schematic design, the simulation team will develop a cardboard mockup to represent a small size version of different areas of the pediatric tower. The cardboard simulation will allow staff to test out processes, see how departments will be set up and catch potential design issues before the real construction begins.

“Blitz Week was an incredible success and helped us eliminate redundancies in our work flow processes to ensure we deliver the most efficient care to our critical care patients,” said Dr. Stephen Stayer, Texas Children’s associate chief of Anesthesiology. “We want to continue to make Texas Children’s the best possible place to give and receive care and this is one example of how we are fulfilling our CareFirst promise.”

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Here at Texas Children’s, we proudly embrace the role of trailblazers to accelerate health care for our patients and their families. Unified in our infinite passion for the mission, we continuously innovate ourselves to meet new medical challenges and situations.

In December, we announced our plan to build an eight-bed special isolation unit at Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus. The unit is designed for children with highly contagious infectious diseases. Similar to the four other biocontainment units in the country, the one at Texas Children’s will be one of the only in the United States designated just for children.

5615SIUinside640“Having the best qualified people running the special isolation unit is key to its success,” said Dr. Gordon Schutze, the unit’s medical director. “Everyone involved will be specially trained in infection control, hospital epidemiology and management of infectious diseases in this special care setting.”

This elite Special Response Team will include physicians, registered nurses, medical technologists and environmental services technicians. The physicians and registered nurses will make up the care team while the medical technologists will perform special specimen testing in a state-of-the-art lab within the special isolation unit. In addition, the environmental services techs will handle waste processing from the unit through an autoclave.

The leaders dedicated to selecting the members of the Special Response Team have begun the process and are asking those who are interested in being a part of this unique and exciting team to raise their hands.

“Being part of this elite team will be an honor and a privilege,” said Dr. Judith Campbell, one of the unit’s associate medical directors.

Dr. Amy Arrington, the unit’s other associate medical director, agreed and said those who are selected to be on the Special Response Team will be getting the chance of a lifetime to impact care delivery. “The care that will be given inside the special isolation unit will be state-of-the art,” she said.

Texas Children’s leaders would like to have the members of the Special Response Team chosen and in place by this summer. At that point, the team will begin a series of ongoing training exercises that will ready them to be deployed to the SIU if it were to be activated.

To learn more about joining the Special Response Team, click here.

About the Special Isolation Unit

Since the decision to build a special isolation unit was made five months ago, members of a multidisciplinary team created specifically for the unit have visited two of the premiere biocontainment units in the country at Emory University in Atlanta and Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

Many of the lessons learned by these organizations have been incorporated into the design of the special isolation unit at Texas Children’s and can be seen in a mock-up of the unit that was recently built on the fourth floor of West Campus. Construction of the unit is anticipated to begin in May and the unit should be fully operational in October.

“This unit will help us do what we do best and that is care for children with some of the most serious and complex medical conditions,” West Campus President Chanda Cashen Chacón explained. “The organization’s decision to create a special isolation unit illustrates the level of competency and skill we have here at Texas Children’s.”

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Texas Children’s is proud to announce that Dr. Judith Campbell was recently named medical director of the Infection Prevention and Control Department. The department is focused on improving the overall quality of health care by preventing and/or controlling disease transmission through the use of sound epidemiologic principles and scientific-based decision making.

In her new role, Campbell will serve as a physician partner to Elaine Whaley, who is the director of the Infection Prevention and Control Department. Campbell also will serve as a physician partner to several infection control practitioners as they ensure compliance with infection control policies and procedures, and make decisions regarding the implementation and institution of surveillance, isolation, and outbreak investigation.

With this added responsibility, Campbell said she will reduce her number of clinical service months from six to four.

“I am honored and humbled to be asked to serve in this capacity at Texas Children’s Hospital,” Campbell said about her new appointment. “I appreciate the years of training and mentoring I have received from my predecessors in this role and look forward to addressing the challenges and opportunities for improvement at Texas Children’s Hospital through collaboration, scholarship and hard work.”

In addition to her new appointment with the Infection Prevention and Control Department, Campbell is one of the attending physicians for the Infectious Disease Service. She also is the program director for the Pediatric Infectious Disease Fellowship program is an associate medical director of our new eight-bed special isolation unit at Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus. This unit will be designed for children with highly contagious infectious diseases.

After earning her medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine, Campbell completed an internship, residency, chief residency and infectious disease fellowship at Texas Children’s Hospital. She was pleased to be offered an opportunity to serve on the faculty upon completion of her clinical and research training in 1992. Since then, she has been focused on the medical education of residents and fellows, and on providing care for infants, children and adolescents with a variety of infectious diseases. She has a special interest in hospital epidemiology/infection prevention and innovative programs and strategies for medical education.

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Texas Children’s Pediatrics is on Facebook! Like them today to connect with other families in your community and receive the latest news and updates about their practices.

Texas Children’s Pediatrics is the nation’s largest primary pediatric care network with 49 locations and more than 200 physicians who offer full-service pediatric care including:

  • Prenatal consultations
  • Well-child visits
  • Care of illnesses
  • Care and treatment of minor injuries
  • Vaccinations and immunizations
  • Preventative health care
  • School and sports physicals
  • Hearing and vision screening
  • Health care and nutrition education

For more information about Texas Children’s Pediatrics, go to http://www.texaschildrenspediatrics.org/

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Employees, patients and their families got a chance this week to learn about Texas Children’s efforts to make the patient and family experience here the best it can be.

Hundreds of people attended patient and family experience events at Main and West campuses. The events offered up a lot of information and a lot of fun.

Employees dressed as jungle animals passed out information on ambulatory surgery’s patient and family experience efforts. Other Texas Children’s workers offered up scoops of ice cream and encouraged passersby to play a variety of games.

Overall, the events were a success at reminding employees, patients and families that care at Texas Children’s goes beyond the bedside. It has to do with how we treat our patients and their families from the moment they call to schedule an appointment with us to the point they leave our care.

Read more about patient and family experience here.

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This Friday, May 8 is Houston’s Bike to Work Day and Employee Health and Wellness encourages you to try this healthy, fun and economical way to get to work.

Bike Houston will be leading group rides from various neighborhoods into the Texas Medical Center. The rides will have a ride leader who will show you how to safely commute into work. All rides arrive to The Texas Medical Center by 8 a.m. Start times depend on location. A support station with food, drinks, and prizes will be at the south side of Cambridge Street.

Click here to R.S.V.P. for the group ride or for more information about Bike to Work Day and Bike Houston. Can’t make a group ride? No problem, just grab your helmet and ride in at a time that works best for you!

Bicycle Commuter Tips

You and Your Bike

  • Ride on roads with speed limits less than or equal to 35 mph.
  • Use a bike map and google maps with the bicycle layer turned on.
  • Always check your bike, brakes, tires, and lights ahead of rides.
  • Always wear a helmet and wear bright, tight fitting clothing if possible.
  • Ride with a friend or group if you can. Bike to Work days provide an excellent opportunity to find a group to ride in with. See BikeHouston’s event calendar to find details for May 2015.

Traffic and Bicycle Laws

  • Bikes are vehicles and laws that apply to motorists also apply to people on bikes.
  • Obey all stop signs, traffic lights and lane markings.
  • Look and signal before you change lanes or turn.
  • Riding on the sidewalk is illegal in business districts. If you prefer to travel by sidewalk rather than by road, you can always get off your bike and walk beside it.
  • Get out there and try it! Bike commuting can be fun!

Texas Children’s staff can park their bikes at the following bike rack locations:

  • Clinical Care Center near valet parking
  • Pavilion for Women near valet parking (staff restroom/shower available on the first floor, just inside the building from the bike racks)
  • Feigin Center near circle driveway
  • West Tower under breezeway
  • West Campus near the loading docks
  • All Texas Medical Center parking garages
  • Check your work location for bike racks