October 10, 2017

From Wednesday, October 11 to Friday, October 13, Texas Children’s will co-host the largest annual nursing conference in the country, along with other local Magnet® hospitals. More than 10,000 nurses and nursing executives representing more than 20 countries will gather at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston for the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s (ANCC) National Magnet Conference®.

“This is such an incredible honor for Texas Children’s to co-sponsor this year’s Nursing Magnet Conference® right here in the Greater Houston area,” said Texas Children’s CNO Mary Jo Andre. “For many months, our Magnet team led by Emily Weber and Sarah Marcion has been engaged with the ANCC in planning for the conference, which I know will be an amazing success.”

The entire Magnet team handled various parts of the coordination including registering and preparing our staff volunteers to serve in a variety of roles at the conference. The team also organized a pediatric Magnet® hospital networking dinner, hospital tours including a tour for nurses from Lebanon, and a Daisy Awards luncheon where the co-founders of the Daisy Foundation will be present to greet attendees.

The Magnet Conference® is the official annual conference of the prestigious Magnet Recognition Program®, that not only recognizes the accomplishments of newly designated Magnet organizations, but provides a showcase of best nursing practices for the Magnet community that can be incorporated into their own organization’s nursing program.

When the Magnet Conference® begins this Wednesday, CNO Mary Jo Andre and Executive Vice President Dan DiPrisco will be on stage with other Magnet hospital executives as more than 10,000 attendees are welcomed at the opening session. Additionally, several of Texas Children’s nurses and staff will deliver podium presentations during the three-day Magnet Conference®. Their entries were among hundreds of entries that were submitted to the ANCC for review before being selected.

Below are the podium presentations that will be delivered by Texas Children’s staff:

  • Making Magic! Mixing Staff Nurse Expertise with Leader Support

Tarra Christopher, Maria Happe, Shannon Holland and Janet Winebar

  • Utilization of Simulation-based Design Tests in Facility Design

Maria Happe, Kerry Sembera and Gemma Elegores

  • Partnership Yields Successful Communication Strategy for Nursing

Jody Childs and Rosanne Moore

The conference also will include poster presentations, informative sessions and other activities. Stay tuned to Connect for event highlights and photos from the Magnet Conference® in an upcoming article.

Three years ago, Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus opened an eight-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit thanks to a generous $1 million donation by the Lauren and Lara Camillo family. On October 9, the last chunk of a $50 million capital improvement effort expanded the unit to 22 beds, providing Texas Children’s West Campus and the entire Texas Children’s system with an opportunity to serve more patients and families that need our care.

“This is a huge milestone for West Campus,” said Executive Vice President Michelle Riley-Brown at a ribbon cutting event and celebration. “Our staff has worked tirelessly on this project and the reward of being able to offer more to our patients and families is well worth it.”

Initially, 16 of the beds will be used for intensive care and six will be for acute care. Two of the intensive care beds have negative pressure capability and can be used for isolation. All of the beds provide more privacy for our patients and families, as well as better visibility and workflow for our nurses and other medical staff.

Located on the fourth floor of the hospital and painted in calming pastels, the unit expansion includes two large nursing stations, an advanced practice provider workspace, a simulation room, nutrition room, lactation room, call room and conference space.

The patient rooms are spacious and have a private bathroom and seating/sleep area for family. The rooms are lined with windows that face outside, letting in sunlight and allowing for great views of the hospital grounds and surrounding community. And, sliding doors permit visibility and quickly allow the care team access to the patient to address any emergency.

Equipment in the rooms and on the floor is robust and includes two blood gas machines for respiratory therapy and additional nurse station monitors. In the future, some of the rooms will be able to offer patients who need dialysis the capability of doing so from the comfort of their beds.

“When West Campus first opened, we thought we would be a stopover for patients waiting to be transferred to Main Campus, but that’s not the case, especially now with our expanded capacity,” said PICU Medical Director Dr. Matthew Pesek. “We have the ability to treat just about any patient who comes our way, no matter how complex.”

Karen Sripan, assistant clinical director of the PICU, agreed and said the planning and design of the PICU expansion began in March 2016 and was comprehensive with the goal of having an environment that allows the PICU staff to do more for their patients.

“We were very thoughtful in our design and engaged staff throughout the entire process,” Sripan said. “We also were mindful of ensuring room design consistency with the Woodlands PICU so that the layout of the rooms are familiar to staff and providers working at both campuses.”

Dr. Hsiao-Tuan Chao received the 2017 Outstanding Junior Member Award from the Child Neurology Society for her discovery of the genetic cause of a neurodevelopmental condition known as the Hypotonia Ataxia and Developmental Disorder Syndrome.

Chao is the clinical instructor in pediatric neurology at Baylor College of Medicine and physician-scientist at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) at Texas Children’s in the laboratory of Dr. Hugo J. Bellen.

Through large-scale collaborative efforts with the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) and Baylor Genetics Laboratory (BGL), Chao’s research studies revealed the pathogenic role of damaging genetic changes in Early B-Cell Factor 3 (EBF3) in neurodevelopment and cognition. Her research continues to focus on elucidating the role of EBF3 dysfunction and transcriptional dysregulation of neural circuits in highly prevalent childhood disorders such as intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder.

Dr. Davut Pehlivan, a medical resident in pediatric neurology and physician-scientist at Baylor College of Medicine in the laboratory of Dr. James Lupski, is the recipient of the 2017 M. Richard KoenigsBerger Scholarship Award from the Child Neurology Society for his studies related to arthrogryposis patients.

Pehlivan analyzed 108 arthrogryposis families using whole exam sequencing approach as part of Baylor-Hopkins Center for Mendelian Genomics initiative. His studies made important contributions to understanding the disease pathogenesis by showing evidence for oligogenic inheritance in arthrogryposis and yielded several novel genes causing arthrogryposis.

The Child Neurology Society established this scholarship award in 2013 to honor the memory of . The awardee is selected between CNS Junior Members/residents submitting the best abstract in the areas of neonatal neurology, genetic diseases, HIV or metabolic disorders.

Texas Children’s collaborative work to develop a novel device to anchor the chorio-amniotic membranes during fetal surgery was recently funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute Of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Partnering with Baylor College of Medicine, the Department of Bioengineering at Texas A&M University, and local life sciences commercialization firm Fannin Innovation Studio, the $225,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant will be used to advance the development of a device that can be introduced into the uterine cavity under ultrasound guidance to anchor the chorio-amniotic membranes, thereby reducing the risk for premature rupture of membranes (PROM) during fetal surgery.

Preterm PROM is the most frequent complication associated with fetal surgery and can increase the risk of premature delivery that could potentially add the insult or prematurity to the fetal anomaly that leads to the need for fetal surgery.

Through the Texas A&M undergraduate and graduate design program, a group of Texas A&M engineering students collaborated with Dr. Jimmy Espinoza and OB/Gyn-in-Chief Dr. Michael A. Belfort, obstetricians and gynecologists, and fetal surgeons at Texas Children’s and Baylor, to create the device in 2016. Espinoza and Belfort challenged the students to develop innovative tools that could be percutaneously introduced into the uterus during fetal surgery to anchor the chorio-amniotic membranes in order to reduce the risk of preterm PROM.

Fetal surgery is a relatively new discipline that aims to reduce the risk for fetal death in conditions such as twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, severe fetal anemia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia or fetal hydrops, or reduce the long term complications and improve the quality of life in conditions such as spina bifida. Texas Children’s and Baylor are at the forefront on fetal surgery in the U.S. and have innovated techniques to make fetal surgery safer for the mothers and their unborn children.

After extensively collaborating with Texas Children’s surgeons to understand the challenges of anchoring the chorio-amniotic membranes during fetal surgery and the need for refinement, the collaborative team developed a device that can be percutaneously introduced into the uterine cavity under ultrasound guidance in order to anchor the chorio-amniotic membranes to reduce the risk for preterm PROM. This new innovation in fetal surgery could potentially be used in all fetal surgeries because of its percutaneous approach and should reduce the risk for the most common complication associated with fetal surgery, namely pre-term PROM.

“The development of new devices and new approaches in fetal surgery is very important to make fetal interventions safer not only for the fetus but also for the mother,” said Espinoza, co-director of the Fetal Center at Texas Children’s. “The decision to proceed to fetal surgery is very altruistic for the mothers because they will be exposed to risks associated with surgery for the benefit of their unborn child. Thus, we have the obligation to minimize those risks. This award recognizes the academic partnerships that are necessary to advance the frontiers of fetal surgery.”

The team’s invention has won the top prize at Texas A&M University’s 2016 annual Engineering Design Showcase. The project was judged against over 700 students on more than 150 other projects.

October 3, 2017

Dr. Peter J. Hotez is the 2017 recipient of the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Award for Sustained National Leadership for his far-reaching work in the areas of neglected tropical disease (NTD) research and vaccine development.

Hotez is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine where he is also professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology. He serves as the director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, where he leads a unique product development partnership for developing new vaccines for hookworm infection, schistosomiasis, Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, and SARS/MERS, diseases that affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

In 2006 at the Clinton Global Initiative, he co-founded a Global Network for NTDs to provide access to essential medicines for hundreds of millions of people. Hotez was among the first to predict Zika’s emergence in the U.S. and is recognized as an authority on vaccines. He is an outspoken leader of national efforts to educate the public about vaccines amid growing misconceptions about them, and he has appeared on BBC, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. Hotez is founding Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.

While flood waters have receded, Hurricane Harvey will have long-lasting effects on the Houston community. To help support the most vulnerable populations, and serve the mental health needs of those children adversely impacted by the recent hurricane and flooding, the Harvey Resiliency and Recovery Program is launching as part of Texas Children’s Hospital’s new Trauma and Grief Center.

The Harvey Resiliency and Recovery Program was made possible through the support of Children’s Health Fund, and a generous donation from singer/songwriter and co-founder of Children’s Health Fund (CHF), Paul Simon, and his wife, singer/songwriter Edie Brickell, a Texas native.

Under the umbrella of the Trauma and Grief Center, the Harvey Resiliency and Recovery Program will be dedicated to serving the needs of the many children and families adversely affected by the storm and its aftermath. The Trauma and Grief Center at Texas Children’s is one of the only health service agencies within this region of Texas with significant child trauma and bereavement expertise. The Center will evaluate traumatized and/or bereaved youth between the ages of 7 and 17 and provide ongoing evidence-based treatments to those youth requiring intervention.

“Using evidence-based assessments and interventions, as well as providing trauma-informed training to mental health professionals and teachers in impacted communities, we hope to more quickly recognize and address the needs of children who are at risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder and related psychological difficulties,” said Dr. Julie Kaplow, director of both the Trauma and Grief Center and Harvey Resiliency and Recovery Program at Texas Children’s. “Surviving a disaster can be distressing for anyone, but youth who have already been exposed to trauma, traumatic loss and/or severe adversity are at particularly high risk for severe persisting stress and may need the support of a mental health professional. This new program will connect our experts to these children.”

Many of the immediate effects of a major disaster are visible to the public eye and include infrastructure damage, flooding and public health issues, such as water contamination. The long-term psychological impacts of a major event are harder to see. This newly-formed program will address the mental health needs of those who survived the recent storm and were exposed to trauma-related risk factors that research indicates is likely to predispose them to long-term mental, emotional and physical consequences.

“Children’s Health Fund has been responding to the needs of children and families post-crisis for 25 years now,” said Dennis Walto, chief executive officer of Children’s Health Fund. “We know kids who were living in poverty before the storm are now at the highest risk for short- and long-term negative impact on mental health and well-being. CHF looks forward to working with Texas Children’s team to develop programs that will reach all children and families impacted by the crisis – especially those who often struggle to access even basic health care – and to take those lessons to other communities that may be facing similar challenges.”

Texas Children’s is working with several community partners, including impacted school districts, to train professionals in how to screen and assess children who may need additional support. A formal screening tool is being used to help identify children who need higher level interventions, and experts at Texas Children’s Harvey Resiliency and Recovery Program will be available to meet with and treat these patients starting in early October.

To learn more about this program, visit Texas Children’s website.

September 26, 2017

At Texas Children’s, we know just how important it is to keep the patient and family’s experience at the forefront of everything we do. Enhancing the experience for every patient and family who walks through our doors to receive care remains our top priority.

“We collect feedback year-round from our patient families to better understand how they experience their care with us, as well as to compare Texas Children’s experience with that of similar women’s and children’s hospitals across the country,” said Texas Children’s Director of Patient and Family Services Katie Kalenda Daggett. “The improvement initiatives and activities implemented across the Texas Children’s system are directly tied to what they tell us through the surveys.”

Starting on October 1, 2017, Texas Children’s will implement several new changes to the Patient Satisfaction Survey in response to feedback from patients, families, staff and providers. These enhancements will make the survey process more convenient for patient families and will provide specific actionable insight on what we do well and on where we have opportunities.

There are several survey improvements that will be implemented in FY18:

  • All phone surveys will transition to e-surveys. E-surveys will give families the opportunity to provide feedback almost immediately or when it is most convenient for them. This will make data more timely for teams. Patient families will also have the opportunity to provide feedback via their mobile devices. The e-survey will be available in two languages – English and Spanish – which will allow staff to receive feedback from the majority of Texas Children’s patient population. Through e-surveys, employees and staff will have the opportunity to survey 100 percent of the eligible patient population.
  • Survey questions will be condensed with the exception of inpatient surveys. Instead of 20 to 60 questions, the e-surveys will consist of 15-20 questions. Survey questions are selected based on their correlation to the patient’s overall satisfaction, the ability to take action, unit-level importance and Magnet reporting. By only asking questions that matter most to patients and their families, the goal is to achieve a better use of patients’ time when completing the survey.
  • Transition to CAHPS survey: Pediatric and adult inpatients will receive a Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) survey upon discharge. The Leapfrog Survey and other regulatory bodies use HCAHPS to measure patient satisfaction. This adjustment will allow Texas Children’s to benchmark the experience of care with others across the nation.
  • Transition to NICU survey: Parents of patients in our Newborn Center will receive a NICU specific e-survey which provide meaningful questions pertaining to the hospital’s NICU population. This survey will allow our NICU to benchmark patient experience scores with other NICU’s across the nation.

In addition to these improvements to patient satisfaction surveying, Texas Children’s will transition to top box for goal setting and data reporting. Considered the industry standard for measuring patient satisfaction, top box is the percentage of respondents who gave the most positive response on the survey scale, such as “very good,” “yes,” or “always” – depending on survey type.

“Patient satisfaction goals will transition from a mean score to top box percentile which is simpler and more concise than a mean score,” said Aileen Rago, assistant director of Patient and Family Services. “Data, reports and unit goals will look different, as top box will be used in place of the mean score. A top box score of 67 percent means that 67 percent of patients/parents responded “very good” to the survey question. Essentially, top box will showcase how consistently we deliver on the experience at Texas Children’s.”

While these changes will take time to get used to, these improvements will provide employees and staff with more timely, meaningful data and benchmarking to ensure we create the best experience for our patients and their families.

“Patient and family experience at Texas Children’s is inclusive of the medical care we provide at the bedside,” Kalenda-Daggett said. “It is a reflection of our partnership with the patient and family. Everything we do revolves around our patients and families being heard and responded to. With these changes, we will be able to survey more of our patients in ways that works best for them; in turn we will better understand the needs of our patients and families, and respond compassionately.”