May 18, 2022

Whether you’re just starting your Texas Children’s career or celebrating decades of dedicated service, the 10 Maxims of Leadership developed by President and CEO Mark A. Wallace are a guiding light for your journey – establishing clear standards for truly catalyst leadership that apply to every member of our One Amazing Team, regardless of role or position.

Those essential maxims have now been brought to new life in a mural located on The Auxiliary Bridge connecting Mark A. Wallace Tower and West Tower at the Medical Center campus, allowing our team members, our patients and their families to literally follow Wallace’s wise words step by step.

Designed by the Austin-based creative firm Butler, the mural showcases the maxims on a bright orange, 3-D wall with “leadership” spelled out in raised white letters. The vibrant display honors Wallace and his visionary leadership, which has fueled Texas Children’s growth and success throughout his tenure as our President and CEO.

The mural also provides our people and our community an opportunity to connect with his tried, trusted and proven leadership lessons in a new venue.

“These maxims work,” said Wallace, who developed each of the 10 key concepts over the course of his career in the Texas Medical Center and particularly during his time at Texas Children’s. “They universally apply to every single one of us. They work Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and they also work at home. It doesn’t matter what your title is; these maxims will help you be a more effective leader in every single aspect of your life.”

The No. 1 maxim, which says that “leadership always influences and determines outcomes – not some of the time, but all of the time,” has always been the foundation of Wallace’s approach to impactful leadership and the difference it can make to an organization in both bull and bear markets.

His second maxim, that “leadership applies to everyone,” is a constant reminder of the difference that each of us at Texas Children’s can make as we work to build a better Tomorrow, Together and motivate our colleagues along the way.

Stop by the new 10 Maxims of Leadership mural anytime for a dose of inspiration and to re-energize, refresh and refocus on your path forward.

In an effort to offer better solutions and support for its more than 560,000 plan members, the Health Plan began its implementation of the Tapestry module in Epic on May 16 by rolling out the red carpet for the Business Operations team kick off.

The Tapestry module will go live July 1 providing end-to-end integrated operations support by unifying multiple data platforms in one system to improve member and provider experience, revenue cycle and care coordination.

Please click here to watch a video to learn all about the features and benefits not only for plan members, but for providers and team members as well.

The Health Plan team will continue to provide updates and key milestones leading up to the plan-wide launch July 1.

Nurse leaders Roxanne Vara and Amy Poso share an update regarding nursing recruitment for the Austin expansion. Read More

April 13, 2022

This week on Mark Wallace’s blog, he reflects on the decision to bring a pediatric community hospital to families north of Houston and all that has been accomplished in the years since. Read More

April 7, 2022

We’re excited to expand our world-class care in Austin, one of America’s fastest growing cities, and we hope you will join us!

As we continue our search for top talent to help deliver on our mission, we have posted 18 new career opportunities, including 16 new Assistant Director positions.

Please click here to explore these new roles and apply for these opportunities. Until April 5, these roles will be posted internally only and will then open to the public.

Even if the role isn’t right for you, please consider reaching out to your network to pass along these great opportunities. We’re always looking for top candidates who want to make a difference, and through E.A.R.N., you can receive $1,000 for referring a candidate who joins our team.

There’s so much to look forward to in 2024 when we open our new state-of-the-art hospital in Austin and further establish ourselves as a leading health care provider for children and women across central Texas. We’ve already built a strong foundation with our expansive operations in the community, including Urgent Care at Westgate, Specialty Care Austin, and multiple Texas Children’s Pediatrics locations.

To address the need for expanded pediatric, fetal and Ob/Gyn care in the central Texas area, the hospital will include neonatal intensive care, pediatric intensive care, operating rooms, epilepsy monitoring, sleep center, emergency center, fetal center, state-of-the-art diagnostic imaging, acute care, and an on-site Texas Children’s Urgent Care location, to name a few. We will also offer numerous subspecialties to patients and families.

For more information and opportunities at Texas Children’s in Austin, keep an eye out for our next Town Hall in May.

You can also learn more about our Austin expansion on Connect.

March 30, 2022

As we move toward creating our Tomorrow, Together, we look forward to the journey and listening to the thoughts and perspectives of our One Amazing Team. Following through on our commitment to put our people first, Culture Rounds was launched, beginning on Wednesday, March 16.

Culture Rounds progress

Executive teams rounded on 32 care areas over the past two weeks and have listened to 59 workforce members and 21 families. Our executives are learning with every minute they spend rounding! Here’s what they have to say…

“I’ve shared with many how grateful I am to be rounding. I appreciated the rounding more than I realized. As I reflect, it has been a very humbling experience and the timing was perfect. The past two years have created a distance and/or absence of what’s really happening with direct patient care. I can’t thank you enough for including me in the pilot program. I look forward to the weekly visits!!!” – Myra Davis, Senior Vice President

“Hearing about patient, family and staff experiences directly from them is exactly what Culture Rounding is about. It is so great to communicate face-to-face and tell them that their voice matters!” – Bert Gumeringer, Senior Vice President

“Hearing directly from the front line team members what they are experiencing is so valuable. We have heard feedback from parents about how amazing our care team members are and how thankful they are for TCH. And when we are hearing concerns, we are able to discuss quickly with leaders and strategize ways to correct quickly.” – Mark Mullarkey, Executive Vice President

Our executives are looking forward to rounding on your teams and hearing your insights about making Texas Children’s even stronger and building a better Tomorrow, Together.

For more information on executive culture rounds and quality, safety and patient experience, contact Quality Specialist Kandice Bledsaw via e-mail.

March 23, 2022

From our first COVID test in March 2020, Texas Children’s reached the remarkable milestone of administering, analyzing and reporting 500,000 COVID tests on Feb 9, 2022. This is a significant number for a pediatric hospital, according to Chief of Laboratory Medicine and Chief of Pathology Informatics, Dr. Ila Singh. As of March 16, 531,735 patients have been tested, with 50,362 patients testing positive.

In December 2019, well before what was then called the Wuhan Coronavirus was detected in the U.S., Dr. Singh, together with Dr. James Dunn, Medical Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratories and Pathologist-in-Chief Dr. James Versalovic began to develop a viral diagnostic test. Texas Children’s was one of the first hospitals in the Medical Center to offer COVID-19 testing starting in March of 2020. Sarah Montenegro, Transition Care Program Assistant Vice President and members of the COVID-19 Testing Taskforce were able to coordinate and begin operating eight testing sites to serve Texas Children’s employees, as well as patient testing centers on units.

Navigating this new set of circumstances alongside the rest of the world brought new challenges and a new level of cooperation. Staff with expertise in Oncology testing offered their services for COVID testing, which needs a similar skill set. Along with realigning and adding lab, nursing and other staff in multiple areas to handle additional responsibilities came unforeseen challenges to troubleshoot and resolve, such as supply chain shortages and disruptions. “We had to use all the tools in our toolbox to make sure we could meet testing needs and provide accurate results in a timely manner,” said Dr. Dunn.

Numerous considerations were taken into account for planning how, where and when to offer testing; how to record, analyze, report and act on results; guidelines for visitors; and protocols for quarantining and returning to work following a positive test.

“We developed new protocols that we continue to use to help make environments safe for patients and employees,” said Dr. Singh. “Testing our patients and practicing vigilant safety protocols allowed us to keep our hospitals and clinics open and continue to provide medical procedures.”

Since that time, testing technology has evolved, allowing Texas Children’s to offer rapid tests that provide results in less than two hours, and tests that can diagnose COVID-19, as well as Influenza and other respiratory infections. Tests that look for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were developed to help in the diagnosis of Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in Children (MIS-C) and to determine if someone developed immunity following vaccination.

“It takes a village to execute our COVID operations,” said Dr. Singh. As she explained, many people are involved in testing, from those stationed at drive-through sites, who collect specimens, to the lab personnel who analyze specimens and report results, to pathologists who provide test interpretation, to informaticists who use testing and patient data to create reports that are used by hospital executives for making informed decisions about hospital operations. These reports are shared with local, state and federal organizations to help generate the COVID data maps that we have gotten used to seeing in newspapers.