March 23, 2021

The Get the Vaccine to End COVID-19 Drawing was announced Monday, February 8, and will continue every weekday through this Friday, March 26. Texas Children’s employees who receive their first dose are automatically eligible for the drawing and the $1,000 prize. Full details on eligibility and requirements are outlined here.

After winning the Get the Vaccine to End COVID-19 Drawing, the following team members tell us why they stepped up to be vaccinated and hope to inspire others.

Adrianne Bourgeois – 8 years of service
EMR Educator, EPIC Training Team
“A little over a year ago I fell ill with what I thought was the flu. After feeling progressively worse, at the suggestion of family and friends, I was tested and received confirmation that I had actually contracted the virus. I chose to get the vaccine to protect myself and others from feeling the way I felt. And I’m so blessed to be alive to receive it.”

Tracy Barbour – 13.4 years of service
Newborn Center NICU Level IV
“I received the COVID-19 vaccine to protect my kids, parents, grandparents, friends, patients, and my community to the best of my ability. I felt, as a nurse, I needed to lead by example and help fight this disease.”

Sylvia Campos – 20 years of service
Ambulatory Services Rep I, Nutrition/GI Clinic
“I’m so Thankful to Texas Children’s for giving me the opportunity to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. It is a good feeling knowing I am doing my part to ensure the safety of myself, my family and my co-workers especially to our patients who come for the best care we have to offer them. Texas Children’s has been the best place to work for the past 20 years and counting!”

To date, more than 9,800 of Texas Children’s employees have received at least one vaccine dose. If you haven’t already, schedule your vaccination appointment now and get your chance at the $1,000 prize, simply click here and sign up for the date and time that work best for your schedule.

In 2018, Cathy Kyomugisha had given up hope. A massive tumor was invading her spine, back and pelvis, and the Ugandan girl with a bright smile was confined to laying on her stomach, unable to move for five years. A serendipitous visit to her room at Bless a Child Foundation started her long journey to Texas Children’s Hospital, where she would meet a team who would make the impossible, possible.

A dedicated, multidisciplinary team of pediatric surgeons, orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons and urologists, alongside anesthesiologists, radiologists, critical care specialists and nurses, among others, worked tirelessly during the three-day surgery to remove the tumor, reconstruct her pelvis and, in turn, give her a new beginning.

Now, nearly a year-and-a-half after she arrived in Houston, Cathy is going home to Uganda with an opportunity to live her life in a meaningful way without pain. She is looking forward to her future and will undoubtedly inspire others with her story.

Click here for a short film chronicling Cathy’s inspiring story.

March 17, 2021

In this 90-second video, Dr. Julie Boom explains the risk of long-term side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.

March 16, 2021

In recognition of Certified Nurses Day on March 19, Khanh Nguyen shares why she obtained her specialty certification in inpatient obstetrics and how it benefits her and her patients. Read more

March 15, 2021

At Texas Children’s, we know our patients are superheroes – and thanks to a new mural now on display at the Medical Center outpost of one of Houston’s favorite sandwich shops, so will our neighbors and friends in the local community.

The “Portraits of Courage” mural stretches across an entire wall at the Antone’s location on Fannin Street, featuring artwork drawn by our current and former patients. Inspired and guided by Texas Children’s Child Life Department, the young artists imagined themselves as superheroes to bring their colorful caped and masked characters to life.

The wide variety of drawings selected for the mural reflect the range of ages and ethnicities of the patients and families we serve, said Jake Rutherford of The Butler Bros, Texas Children’s creative agency.

“The idea for the mural came from our shared excitement about getting Texas Children’s Hospital patients to see themselves as superheroes,” Rutherford said, noting that the project was a collaborative effort between Child Life, Art Therapy, Antone’s and The Butler Bros.

“We wanted people visiting Antone’s to see that Texas Children’s patients are brave, capable and strong.”

According to our Child Life team, art helps our patients communicate about their world and express themselves without having to use words. The creative process can be therapeutic, providing a safe and developmentally sensitive way for children to navigate the hospital setting.

It also gives them a strong sense of accomplishment to complete their artwork, increasing their positive self-esteem and resilience even in the midst of medical treatments. Child Life team members said the experience gave one patient – in a clinic appointment following a bone marrow transplant – a time to reflect on how proud she is of herself for making it through.

Child Life specialists also noted that many of our patients were excited to be included in the mural and have a brush with fame. One young boy was “beaming” and “grinning ear to ear” when he learned his art would be displayed. Another patient told her art therapist that knowing her artwork is part of the mural gives her something to look forward to the next time she returns to Texas Children’s, where she’s been admitted for extended periods over the past few months.

Check out photos of the Portraits of Courage mural in the photo gallery below – and if you stop by Antone’s to see the artwork in person, consider ordering The Dr. Hotez One World sandwich while you’re there. The special banh mi is named for our own Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s.

In another partnership with Texas Children’s, Antone’s will donate 50 percent of the proceeds from the sale of The Dr. Hotez One World to the vaccine development center. The sandwich will be available through May 31 at all three Antone’s locations in Houston.

“…A sense of hope that if this vaccine is available to the community, we can get to the other side of COVID-19,” says Jackie Ward, Chief Nursing Officer and SVP.

The patient is at the center of the 21st Century Cures Act in order to provide them more power in the delivery of health care, which includes access to medical information.

In 2016, the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) for Health Information Technology passed federal legislation called the 21st Century Cures Act Final Rule that puts patients in charge of their health records, which is a key piece of Health and Human Services (HHS) work toward a value-based health care system. The ONC Final Rule enables the health care delivery system to deliver an “app economy” to providers and patients, physicians, hospitals, payers, and employers with innovation and choice.

Through the delivery of modern smartphone and software apps, patients and providers will see benefits in accessing electronic health information (EHI). Patients will have more convenient and easier options to gain on-demand access to their EHI whenever and wherever they need it. In addition, there will be the increasing ability for patients to choose apps that will assemble and read their records. The interoperability, information blocking, and patient access to data and electronic health record certification requirements outlined in the 21st Century Cures Act will go into effect in multiple phases and will impact our patients, health care providers and health IT software developers.

To learn more about this effort, click here.

Changes to Inpatient and Emergency Center settings will go live on March 21, 2021. With this, there will also be optimizations to Ambulatory areas, who went live with these changes in November 2020. Texas Children’s will release data via MyChart, and other patient portals, in order to make information more accessible and not require patients to go through the traditional medical record release process. Several other changes on the horizon include:

  • Patient Access API – Beginning December 31, 2022, CMS-regulated payers (including Medicaid MCOs) are required to implement a secure, standards-based application programming interface (API) that allows patients to access their claims, encounter information and some clinical data.
  • CMS Payer-to-Payer Data Exchange – This provision will require CMS-regulated payers to share certain clinical data with each other and other payers. This allows the patient to take their information with them as they move from payer to payer over time to help create a cumulative health record with their current payer.
  • United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) standard expands – Starting in October 2022, under ONC’s rule, the definition of EHI will expand beyond the USCDI. The EHI definition will include the full HIPAA electronic designated data set.

To prepare, educate, and ensure compliance across the organization, a workgroup has been assembled to carefully review the regulation, review our policies, procedures and business practices, and develop a system wide communication plan to ensure our providers are compliant with this new federal regulation. All Texas Children’s team members are invited to learn more about this regulation and its implementation by visiting our SharePoint site, which provides details on what you need to know, including a recordings of prior Town Halls, a crash course, simulation center videos, handouts and much more.

Stay tuned for additional updates.