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.”

Anita Kruse, executive director of Purple Songs Can Fly, and Lisa Sheinbaum, owner of Art For All, recently joined efforts to publish a book benefiting Purple Songs Can Fly, a program that provides a musical outlet for children being treated for cancer and blood disorders at Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers.

Titled ‘Purple Song,’ the book was written by Kruse and illustrated by Sheinbaum. Through their words and pictures, the women produced a story about Purple Song, a little purple companion shaped like a treble clef with wings who shows readers how to sing their way through their troubles.

“‘Purple Song’ lets you see that friendship can emerge into beautiful melodies,” Kruse said. “We want readers to join Purple Song as she lifts them up and shares her connection to the power of music.”

Published by LongTale Publishing, a portion of the books proceeds will go to Purple Songs Can Fly. You can purchase ‘Purple Song’ at Texas Children’s gift shops and retail outlets such as Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

On September 22, Dr. Martha Curley, the 2017 recipient of the Thomas Vargo Visiting Professorship in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine, presented two lectures to residents, fellows, APP’s, physicians and nurses during her visit to Texas Children’s including Pediatric Grand Rounds  titled “Team Science – Answering Complex Clinical Questions Together.”

Curley is the Ellen and Robert Kapito Professor in Nursing Science at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. She also holds a joint appointment in Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at the University’s Perelman School of Medicine and is a nurse scientist at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Through several decades of outstanding high quality nurse-led research that engages all members of the clinical team, Curley has transformed the ICU experiences and outcomes of countless critically ill children and their families all over the world.

September 19, 2017

Since the topping out celebration of Texas Children’s Legacy Tower nearly seven month ago, significant construction milestones have been reached inside the tower’s 400-foot-tall structure at Texas Children’s Medical Center campus.

Carefully designed to promote the safest possible environment to care for our most critically ill patients and their families, construction is underway on the patient care rooms in the cardiovascular intensive care unit (CVICU), pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) and the progressive care unit (PCU). Last year, a series of patient care simulations were conducted to identify and eliminate any latent safety defects in the final design of the critical care tower before actual construction began.

Based on helpful feedback from our providers and patient families, the size of the critical care rooms inside the Legacy Tower will be between 350 to 450 square feet – three times the size of the hospital’s current ICU rooms. The rooms will feature a dedicated family space, a bathroom and shower, and care teams will have enhanced visibility and monitoring between patient rooms and into the patient rooms from the nurses’ work stations. The ICU rooms also will be equipped with state-of-the-art technology including a boom that will provide gas, power and data from the ceiling.

“Booms allow us to position the patient almost anywhere in the 360-degree circle,” said Chief of Critical Care Medicine Dr. Lara Shekerdemian. “This means that we can use some very state-of-the-art equipment for mounting all of the pumps, monitors and ventilators at the patient’s bedside while keeping the equipment off the floor.”

The Legacy Tower’s high intensity operating rooms and intraoperative state-of-the-art MRI suite also will provide dedicated subspecialty care for surgical patients.

“Our pediatric surgical patients are different than other ICU patients,” said Texas Children’s Chief of Plastic Surgery Dr. Larry Hollier. “For the first time, we’re going to have them in a setting where the care is designed specifically for that surgical patient, and that’s going to be located one floor above the operating rooms. The new tower will help us increase our OR capacity so we are not turning patients away from receiving critical care.”

The Legacy Tower will open in two phases. The first phase will occur in May 2018 when the PICU, PCU, operating rooms and Radiology open. A few months later, the Heart Center will move into the new tower in August 2018.

The 25-floor Legacy Tower will house 126 beds for pediatric and cardiovascular intensive care, six new operating rooms (ORs) with the latest technology to complement the hospital’s existing 19 ORs, and will be the new home of Texas Children’s Heart Center, including the outpatient clinic, four cardiovascular ORs and four catheterization labs. This vertical expansion will help reinvest in the programs needed to provide the highest level of care to our most critically ill patients.

“I don’t know of any other children’s hospital in the country that has the type of experience that Texas Children’s has in bringing all of these elements together,” Hollier said. “With larger, more functional spaces, we will be able to provide patients and families with the best possible environment to receive care.”

Chief nursing executives and chief nursing officers play a crucial role in a hospital or health systems’ success. Many top nursing executives oversee large teams of nurses to ensure quality of care and patient experience.

Texas Children’s Chief Nursing Officer and Senior Vice President Mary Jo Andre was recently recognized as one of the “60+ Hospital and Health System CNOs to Know” for 2017 by Beckers Hospital Review, the leading source of cutting-edge business and legal information for healthcare industry leaders.

Andre joined Texas Children’s as a staff nurse and held several leadership positions, including senior vice president over quality and safety, before being promoted to CNO in 2015. Andre led the hospital’s efforts to improve its quality program, which yielded better patient safety and engagement.

Click here to read the Becker’s Hospital Review article.

September 8, 2017

Dr. William Pederson has been named the Samuel Stal, MD Endowed Chair in Plastic Surgery, and Dr. Edward Reece has been named the Josephine Abercrombie Endowed Professor in Plastic Surgery Research.

“Both Dr. Pederson and Dr. Reece are exceptionally worthy recipients of these endowed positions,” said Dr. Larry Hollier, associate surgeon-in-chief for clinical affairs and chief of Plastic Surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital, and chief of Plastic Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. “We are very fortunate to have received endowment funding from generous donors and hospital leadership in order to recruit and retain the most talented surgeons to care for our patients.”

Samuel Stal, MD Endowed Chair in Plastic Surgery

The Samuel Stal, MD Endowed Chair in Plastic Surgery was created through the contributions of Texas Children’s Hospital to honor the legacy of Dr. Samuel Stal, who served as chief of Plastic Surgery at both Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine. For more than 30 years, Dr. Stal focused his Texas Children’s practice on helping children with craniofacial, cleft lip and palate deformities. He also created the Texas Children’s Center for Facial Surgery, which accepted all children with facial deformities regardless of their family’s ability to pay.

Pederson is a highly regarded hand and microvascular surgeon with faculty appointments in plastic surgery, orthopedics, neurosurgery and pediatrics at Texas Children’s and Baylor. His clinical interests include the management of vascular problems in the upper extremity, nerve injury and repair including brachial plexus, Volkmann’s ischemic contracture, facial paralysis and microsurgical reconstruction of complex extremity defects.

A leader in his field, Pederson currently serves as president of the American Association for Hand Surgery. Pederson was named a director of the American Board of Plastic Surgery in 2013 and is the chair of the Board’s Hand Surgery Examination Committee. He also serves as a member-at-large on the executive council of the World Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery. He has served as president of the American Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery and has served on the executive council of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand.

Pederson has authored more than 70 papers in peer-reviewed literature and 40 textbook chapters. He is an editor of the textbook “Green’s Operative Hand Surgery,” and serves on the editorial boards of the “Journal of Hand Surgery” and the “Journal of Reconstructive Microsurgery.”

Josephine Abercrombie Endowed Professorship in Plastic Surgery Research

The Josephine Abercrombie Endowed Professorship in Plastic Surgery Research was established by Ms. Abercrombie’s son, George Robinson, to honor his mother and the Abercrombie legacy of giving to Texas Children’s and Baylor. J.S. Abercrombie, Josephine’s father, was one of the founders of Texas Children’s Hospital.

Reece is the chief of Adult Plastic Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. He specializes in plastic surgery and surgery of the hand. He is also a member of the Hand Surgery Program at Texas Children’s.

After earning a medical degree and Master’s degree in applied anatomical sciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Reece completed his plastic surgery residency at UT Southwestern in Dallas. He went on to train under Dr. David Green at UT San Antonio in hand surgery and microvascular reconstructive surgery. He also earned an Executive MBA degree with an additional certification in health care supply chain from Arizona State University.

Reece conducts research in the areas of peripheral nerves, reconstructive surgery and telehealth as it relates to improving doctor-patient interactions and coordinating efficient care and affordable cost. He has founded several biomedical companies that seek to find efficiency and cost savings for institutions while preserving the highest quality to patients.

Three Endowed Positions in Plastic Surgery

This is the third endowed appointment for the Division of Plastic Surgery at Texas Children’s. Hollier holds the S. Baron Hardy Endowed Chair in Plastic Surgery. Dr. S. Baron Hardy was the first chief of Plastic Surgery at Texas Children’s. The endowment was gift from the T.L.L. Temple Foundation and was championed by Temple Webber, who serves as a T.L.L. Temple Foundation trustee.

August 22, 2017

Social media is a large part of almost everyone’s daily life. It’s where people connect with friends, meet new people and find out information to make important life decisions. More and more people are using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media outlets as a tool to help them decide where to get their health care. And, a growing number of patient families are using social media and the Internet to describe their experiences at Texas Children’s Hospital and make their voices heard about the patient care we are providing.

In order to reach the majority of these patient families, Texas Children’s goal is to gradually achieve superior customer engagement by strategically finding, responding and reporting on relevant conversations on behalf of the health system. This can include online reviews or direct messages about our care on Facebook, Twitter, Google, YELP or other review sites. The goal of these efforts is to improve customer service and patient experience, respond to issues in real time and drive our brand’s reputation.

“The power of social media cannot be ignored,” said Texas Children’s Senior Social Media Specialist Cara Lovan. “We have to use social media as a tool to access our patients and families, talk to them in real-time and improve the overall experience they receive when they are here. If patients feel like they are being heard and that we are actively working to solve their issues, they are more likely to recommend us to friends and family who are looking for health care options.”

Texas Children’s has made a great deal of progress in this arena over the past two years, work that recently landed the hospital’s Facebook page a “Very Responsive” distinction from the social media giant. The distinction is given to organizations that respond to 90 percent of their Facebook inquiries in under 15 minutes. The average response time for Texas Children’s is less than five minutes.

Across various Internet and social media platforms including Facebook, Yelp and Google, Texas Children’s receives an average of about 2,000 reviews a year, all of which are monitored in real time 24/7. Those involved in the review process work closely with Family Advocacy and practice administrators to close the loop on complaints. They also work with leaders across the system to share positive reviews with staff.

“We are working to move beyond just being responsive,” Lovan said. “While that is important, we hope to proactively elicit positive reviews in the future as well as directly improve patient experience.”

Part of that effort includes maintaining and improving our star ratings across various online platforms. Currently, Texas Children’s average score for its hospitals is 4.5 stars out of 5 stars. That same rating for Texas Children’s Pediatrics and Texas Children’s Urgent Care is 3.9 stars.

“Texas Children’s has a stellar reputation on and offline,” Lovan said. “We want to make sure it stays that way.”

Texas Children’s Social Media and Online Outlets

Texas Children’s Website: http://www.texaschildrens.org/
Texas Children’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TexasChildrensHospital/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/texaschildrens
Texas Children’s Blog: http://www.texaschildrens.org/blog/