March 25, 2014

Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women opened its doors two years ago and has been exceeding expectations ever since. View the photos below and see if you can guess some of the most memorable moments from the last 24 months.

Then scroll to the bottom of the page for the answers

1. What was the official first day of delivering miracles at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women?

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2. Who was the first baby born at the new facility?

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3. Why was the miracle bridge lit up on the first day of inpatient services?

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4. Who are the famous babies in this picture?

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5. How was the Pavilion involved with the March of Dimes?

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6. What other service is important to the diverse group of patients who visit the Pavilion?

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7. What are some of the in-utero procedures that have been done at the Pavilion?

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8. How many babies were born in year one?

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9. Where is the hospital’s first community ObGyn office?

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10. What did the Hackett family gift fund?

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11. What is the use of the DaVinci robot?

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12. Who is Baby Audrina?

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Answers:

1. Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women leadership broke the ribbon on the brand new hospital on March 23, 2012, the first day of inpatient services was Monday, March 26, 2012.
2. The first baby born at the Pavilion for Women was Brayten Green, born at 8:16 a.m. March 26, 2012.
3. On the first night of delivering miracles, The Miracle Bridge was lit up in blue to celebrate the first baby born at the Pavilion for Women.
4. The “Perkins Pack,” as they came to be known, was the first set of sextuplets born at the Pavilion for Women. They gained national attention with several interviews on network television.
5. As a center dedicated to high risk pregnancies which cares for many premature babies, the Pavilion was the presenting sponsor for March of Dimes March for Babies 2012.
6. The Menopause Clinic is just one of the sought-after features available at the Pavilion that allow us to care for women at every stage of life.
7. Programs for in-utero spina bifida repair, in-utero heart intervention, and in-utero balloon placement for congenital diaphragmatic hernia were all created within the first year.
8. Within the first a year, about 5,000 babies were born at the Pavilion.
9. The first ever ObGyn clinic opened its doors in Pearland bringing the Pavilion’s outpatient services to the Pearland community.
10. The hospital received a $2 million gift to establish the Maureen Hackett Endowed Chair for Reproductive Psychiatry.
11. The new robotics program and the acquisition of the DaVinci robot allows for the use of cutting-edge techniques to help perform complex surgical procedures that are minimally invasive in both the adult and pedi population.
12. Baby Audrina Cardenas was born at the Pavilion with one-third of her heart outside of her chest. A multidisciplinary team of surgeons performed a six hour open-heart surgery where they reconstructed her chest cavity to make space for her heart.

March 18, 2014

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A new, on-site ReadyCam© broadcast studio has opened at Texas Children’s which will allow doctors, nurses, scientists, researchers and patient families to appear live on broadcast news programs. Experts from the hospital will be able to report and comment on breaking health care news and stream webcasts directly from Texas Children’s main campus, while reaching news outlets throughout the country.

“We are really excited to have this studio,” said Christy Brunton, director of public relations at Texas Children’s. “It’s going to allow us to give the public direct access to our experts, allowing them to comment on the stories that our patients need to hear and understand.”

The broadcast studio located in the Clinical Care Center will allow the hospital to easily transmit high quality audio and video to any news outlet. The launch of the studio corresponded to a coordinated satellite news feed and press conference featuring Dr. Jennifer Arnold, neonatologist at Texas Children’s Newborn Center and director of Texas Children’s Simulation Center, who discussed her recent cancer diagnosis, unique care and current prognosis. An interview with Arnold was made available via satellite. A number of local and regional news stations utilized the footage to report on Arnold’s story.

Those interested in learning more about the press conference and announcement from Arnold can read about it in the Houston Chronicle article and KHOU television segment.

This successful first use of the ReadyCam© broadcast studio is only one example of ways the studio can be utilized. Brunton anticipates it will be a valuable resource during a health care crisis or emergency, when media outlets will need access to top experts for commentary. It also will be an easy way to share inspirational patient stories.

“For the past several years it has been a key goal of ours to make it easier for the media to access our experts,” said Brunton. “We have some of the best kept secrets right here at our hospital and this gives us the chance to showcase our physicians and nurses.”

In addition to promoting the good work taking place at Texas Children’s, and to allow our experts to be valuable resources to the media, the ReadyCam© may be used to stream live video to conferences, depending on the technical capabilities of the conference. To take a virtual tour of the new broadcast studio, click here.

Anyone who is available to comment on breaking news, has an incredible patient story, or is interested in learning more about using the studio, should contact the PR department by calling Ext. 4-2099 and paging the media person on call.

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Recently, First Lady Michelle Obama unveiled the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposed changes to food labels, which have remained the same for the past 20 years. In my opinion, this announcement is long overdue. My nutrition colleagues and I have been advocating for these modifications for many years, as we believe they will help the everyday consumer understand exactly what they are putting into their bodies.

If the proposed changes are approved, the new labels will place a larger emphasis on total calories, added sugars and vitamin D and potassium. While I think all of these categories are important, I am hopeful that listing added sugars will help families better determine exactly what they are consuming on a daily basis.

For example, yogurt is a long-time family favorite at the breakfast table. Many popular yogurt brands that add fruit to enhance flavor will benefit from this proposed change. While the fruit may add flavor, the syrup it sits in also adds a good amount sugar. I always recommend buying plain yogurt for your family and adding fresh berries and other fruit to control how much sugar you are actually eating. Almost every item that you see in the grocery store has the potential to contain added sugars. Labels on other common foods that will likely be edited if the proposed changes go into effect include: ketchup, cereals, peanut butter and bread.

You’re not alone if you’ve read about these changes in the news over the past week and aren’t sure what they mean or how to read a label. The current nutrition labels are not very user-friendly. If and when these proposed changes go into effect, I expect them to be much less overwhelming.

This is a positive step in helping consumers take control of their health and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for our nutrition labels.

March is also National Nutrition Month! It’s a great time to celebrate healthy eating, so over the next few weeks you will see some great user-friendly information on the blog for you and your family.

March 11, 2014

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The Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative at Texas Children’s Hospital (BIPAI) recently announced its partnership with Chevron and the global health nonprofit AmeriCares by accepting a grant to address the gap in health care resources in Romania.

AmeriCares has been providing lifesaving anti-retroviral medications, anti-infectives and nutritional supplements to families receiving care at BIPAI’s Romanian NGO affiliate, the Baylor College of Medicine Black Sea Foundation, since 2004. Now, Chevron Romania has made a multi-year commitment to increase the availability of medications and medical supplies at selected public and private hospitals in Romania through AmeriCares and the Baylor College of Medicine Black Sea Foundation.

According to Michael Mizwa, chief operating officer of BIPAI, the partnership will provide support for our global health initiatives, specifically for care, treatment and capacity building in Romania. Funds will be allotted to help bolster our inventory of medical and pharmaceutical supplies to specific hospitals and clinics serving disenfranchised populations in Romania.

Since being founded in 1996 by Dr. Mark W. Kline, BIPAI has grown into a network of state-of-the-art clinical centers in Romania and across southern and East Africa. BIPAI-affiliated organizations provide care and treatment to more than 180,000 HIV-infected children and their family members, which is believed to be more than any other program in the world. BIPAI is now part of Texas Children’s overall global health initiative, which includes the largest collection of pediatricians and pediatric specialists in the world.

With the new Chevron partnership, BIPAI and AmeriCares will expand the donation of medication and medical supplies to a network of qualified health care institutions across Romania, by increasing BIPAI-Romania’s capacity to manage larger quantities of donations on behalf of its own clinical center as well as additional health care institutions with identified resource needs throughout Romania.

“Our partnership with Chevron will take our humanitarian partnership to a higher level of expanded outreach across Romania,” said Tammy Allen, director of AmeriCares programs in Asia and Eurasia.

To date, AmeriCares has supported BIPAI-Romania’s health care programs with gift-in-kind donations valued at $41 million.

ICD10a

When the American Medical Association (AMA) petitioned the government on February 12 to delay the start of ICD-10 many wondered what would happen. What will happen at Texas Children’s is pretty clear – the conversion to ICD-10 will go live October 1.

“Here at Texas Children’s, we started working on this process more than a year ago,” said Myra Davis, senior vice president of Information Services. “We’re making the necessary changes to our systems, as well as implementing an education program for providers and coding staff that will make the transition as smooth as possible.”

On October 1, Texas Children’s and health care organizations nationwide will transition to ICD-10, the coding system used to report and code diagnoses, injuries, impairments and other health problems and their manifestations. It will replace ICD-9, the current coding system used at Texas Children’s.

Everyone has acknowledged that implementing a new coding system won’t be easy. In fact, the AMA estimates that even small physician practices can expect to spend between $57,000 and $226,000 to get ready for the change. But everyone agrees that the result will be better data for providers, patients and researchers.

While the AMA continues to seek a repeal of ICD-10, it nonetheless remains a federal mandate and physicians are urged to prepare for the October 1, 2014 compliance deadline.

On February 27, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that nothing has changed with the ICD-10 deadline. Marilyn Tavenners spoke to a group of IT professionals at a national conference when she made that announcement.

“There are no more delays, and the system will go live on October 1,” Tavenner said. “We’ve delayed this several times, and it’s time to move on.”

A quick timeline

In 2008, the U.S. government agreed that America should join with other nations in implementing ICD-10. They originally set October 1, 2013, as the deadline, but that was extended to 2014. The new codes will impact the hospital’s electronic medical record (EMR) and affect codes for both diagnoses and procedures. All told, the number of diagnosis codes will increase from 14,000 to 69,000, while the number of procedure codes will grow from 14,000 to 71,000.

The last time the U.S. changed its national coding system was in 1979. That’s when hospitals and providers moved from ICD-8 to ICD-9. People who favor the next move to ICD-10 point out that when ICD-9 first was implemented, people still could smoke in hospitals.

“Medicine has evolved so much, it only makes sense to update our systems,” Davis said. “Think of how many new treatments have been developed in the last 25 years. The old code set wasn’t designed to capture those innovations, while the new code set better describes what’s happening in medicine today.”

In the end, Texas Children’s is committed to meeting the October 1 deadline to implement ICD-10, no matter what the chatter is in the industry.

For more information
ICD-10 Fact Sheet
ICD-10 Industry Updates
ICD-10 Myths and Facts

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Texas Children’s Advance Practice Providers hosted their first International Conference recently. It was a huge success with more than 130 attendees from across the world. The conference started with two days of pre-conference seminars focusing on pharmacology, skills labs and palliative care. The main conference included attendees and speakers from across the nation to equip advance practice providers with acute and subspecialty care knowledge, as well as to connect with experts for collaboration.

The mission of the Texas Children’s Hospital Advanced Practice Provider Conference (TCHAPP) was to empower advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) and physician assistants (PAs) through state of the art education, training, innovation, collaboration and professional development. The conference curriculum was diverse and allowed attendees to tailor their learning experience to their own unique practice needs.

March 4, 2014

3514icd10640Most people receiving care probably assume their medical records include details like whether their condition is acute or chronic, how their illness is progressing or, at a minimum, which side of the body an injury may have occurred.

Believe it or not, there has not been a standard way to document basic information like this in patients’ medical records across the U.S. The new coding system – ICD-10 – will change that.

On October 1, Texas Children’s and healthcare organizations nationwide will transition to ICD-10, the coding system used to report and code diagnoses, injuries, impairments and other health problems and their manifestations. It will replace ICD-9, the current coding system used at Texas Children’s.

Why make the change?

In 2009 the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services formally adopted ICD-10 as America’s new national coding system and set October 1, 2014 as the deadline for facilities and providers to implement the new system.

ICD-10 is important because a patient’s record is a legal document. It notes exactly what care a patient has received, when they received it, why they received it and treatment plans going forward.

Before, a record could show that a patient had uncontrolled diabetes but had no additional documentation. Now, with the increased specificity of ICD-10, the record will show whether the diabetes was caused by an underlying medical condition or whether it was triggered by an external factor, like medication or chemicals. The new codes specifically ask for the type, any complications and the manifestations of a certain diagnosis.

“It’s all about improving the documentation of the care a patient receives,” said Texas Children’s Chief Safety Officer Dr. Joan Shook. “It’s critical because it can improve the quality of care. It ensures our compliance with CMS (the office responsible for Medicare and Medicaid) regulations, and it affects the hospital’s revenue.”

Know the two parts of ICD-10

There are two types of ICD-10 coding: ICD-10-CM, which means “clinical modification” and refers to diagnosis coding. The other is ICD-10-PCS, which stands for procedure coding system and refers to coding for inpatient hospital procedures. Both will be implemented at Texas Children’s on October 1.

How Texas Children’s physicians are preparing

Because ICD-10 will change the hospital’s Epic system, which is our electronic medical record (EMR), members of the hospital’s Epic support team have been meeting with physicians since November to determine the best way to refine it. Physicians will participate in “clinical documentation assessments” to determine what tools need to be refined or added to Epic to make it ICD-10-ready.

The hospital has partnered with Baylor College of Medicine to provide e-learning videos for the doctors about ICD-10. Each specialist will take three to four e-learning courses this summer, along with an e-learning course on Epic.

Throughout the process, a team of ICD-10 physician champions will serve as liaisons to the medical staff. Each specialty also has its own Epic physician liaison should they have any questions or comments.

How others at Texas Children’s are preparing

The coding staff is attending “boot camps” to learn the ins and outs of the new system.

Additionally, the hospital has been educating providers’ offices through the Texas Children’s Health Plan newsletter since last year.

How the rest of us can prepare

Even if you do not work in a role where you have to document or understand documentation codes, you should understand, in general, what’s happening and how it may impact your own medical record documentation. The best thing you can do in the months ahead is learn as much as you can about ICD-10. Below are links to a quick fact sheet and helpful sites with basic information.

For more information

ICD-10 Fact Sheet
ICD-10 Industry Updates
ICD-10 Myths and Facts