October 7, 2019

More than 300 golfers wore their baddest pants, played their best golf and raised more than $440,000 for Texas Children’s Newborn Center at the Clubs of Kingwood on October 2.

The RBC Wealth Management Bad Pants Open, an annual golf tournament now in its 22nd year, has raised more than $7 million over the past two decades to support continued innovation and excellence in the research, treatment and care of critically-ill and premature infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Texas Children’s Hospital. Tournament proceeds fund nurse training and education and hands-on bereavement care programs and ensure that each family’s most urgent needs are met – from covering parking costs to providing meals, transportation, car seats and more.

Recently renamed to acknowledge RBC Wealth Management’s longtime financial and employee volunteer support, the RBC Wealth Management Bad Pants Open was chaired by Brian Brantley, senior vice president and general counsel of SeaOne Holdings, LLC.

RBC Wealth Management brought in Dan Boever for a long drive exhibition and golfers enjoyed lunch on the course provided by Beck’s Prime. Players were also treated to complimentary pre-golf stretching provided by Reach Stretch Studios and live on-site broadcasting by ESPN 97.5 Houston, the tournament’s media partner. Among the tournament’s major sponsors were RBC Wealth Management, Jacob White Construction, CenterPoint Energy and Pam and Gary Whitlock.

The event featured a post-play awards ceremony and dinner catered by A Fare Extraordinaire, where players were awarded plates painted by Texas Children’s patients for both the best golf scores and baddest pants.

Kelly Jett, a NICU nurse at Texas Children’s Hospital, was presented with the NICU Nurse of the Year award, a special recognition awarded at each tournament. Pearland residents Eva and Philip Quartey, parents of Blessing Quartey, who was born at 24 weeks gestation weighing just over a pound and received care in the NICU at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women, were honored at the event as well. Eva gave an emotional speech about the doctors, nurses and other support staff that helped her family through their long NICU journey.

More than 2,500 critically-ill and premature infants receive essential care in Texas Children’s NICU each year, many of whom are born at nearby Houston-area hospitals. Texas Children’s is the nation’s largest NICU and one of only two Level IV NICUs in the greater Houston area. More information, including next year’s tournament date, will be available at www.badpantsopen.com.

September 23, 2019

Premature infants and sick infants often need the kind of medical attention and care only found in a newborn intensive care unit like Texas Children’s Hospital Newborn Center.

Named No. 7 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report 2019-2020 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings, The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Texas Children’s Hospital is designated by the Texas Department of State Health Services as a level IV NICU, the highest level of care available for premature and critically-ill newborns.

More than 1,800 infants are cared for each year in the Texas Children’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), making us one of the largest, most experienced NICUs in the country. We provide all services that critically ill or premature babies might need, including on-site neonatologists available 24/7, the highest level of respiratory support, advanced imaging, pediatric surgery, pediatric anesthesiology and more.

Texas Children’s NICU is led by a multidisciplinary team of neonatal experts – physicians and nurses who are internationally known for their level of experience and knowledge in the care of premature and critically ill infants. They serve on committees and consortiums that set the standard of care for newborn care nationally and conduct research on a range of topics in perinatal and newborn medicine.

“I am extremely excited that our neonatal team has been named again as one of the best in the nation,” said Chief of Neonatology Dr. Gautham Suresh. “As a Level IV NICU, our neonatal team has the resources and expertise to deliver the highest level of care available for premature and critically ill newborns.”

Texas Children’s Newborn Center is continuously ranked by U.S. News as one of the best places in the nation to receive pediatric care. The rankings use a well-accepted framework for evaluating quality of health care, which factors in patient outcomes, such as mortality and infection rates; available clinical resources; and compliance with best practices. Improved rankings demonstrate a health care organization’s commitment to not only providing high-quality care, but also to identifying gaps where improvements are needed.

Big wins for patients and families

This past year, the Newborn Center built on its legacy of success and implemented new initiatives to increase transparency, reduce risk of infection and improve the quality of care. Here are some of the center’s big wins for patients and families:

Increased the number of infants discharged drinking their mother’s milk.
Studies have found that when infants receive their mother’s milk at discharge they are more likely to breastfeed and/or breast milk feed for longer. To encourage this behavior, the Keeping Abreast Quality Improvement work group was formed to identify areas for improvement involving human milk feeding and direct breastfeeding in the Newborn Center. From this group, two sub-groups were formed to optimize colostrum for oral care and infant-driven feeding. Colostrum is the first fluid produced by the breast after birth and is rich in nutrients, immune and growth factors. The work of these groups helped increase by 15 percent the number of infants discharged drinking their mother’s milk. This year, 1,024 infants were discharged drinking their mother’s milk compared with 894 last year. A bar coding system for correct breast milk identification also was implemented. The system decreases the likelihood of milk misappropriation.

Achieved a less-than-24-hour turnaround time for urine organic acid and amino acid on-site analysis. The 24-hour turnaround time on urine organic acid and amino acid tests has important implications for newborns. These tests help clinicians diagnose newborns with inborn errors of metabolism, a group of disorders caused by defects in pathways that are crucial for metabolizing food and turning it into a source of energy. Prompt diagnosis of these conditions is important as it allows us to start targeted treatments and initiate dietary changes without significant delay. Rather than presuming the diagnosis and implementing generalized treatment plans, we are able to customize specific treatment plans based on the diagnosis and counsel families accordingly.

Emergent neonatal transports were dispatched within 30 minutes of being requested.
This improvement was made by strengthening partnerships between neonatal nurse practitioners and members of the Neonatology and Transport service team. To ensure the neonatal nurse practitioners were able to respond to the transport team when a transport request was made, a float neonatal nurse practitioner was scheduled and dedicated to such requests. When a float neonatal nurse practitioner was not available, the neonatal nurse practitioners on the floor were empowered to provide a short, succinct checkout to the neonatologist or fellow neonatal nurse practitioner to ensure a timely dispatch time.

Increased the number of registered nurses with neonatal intensive care certification.
The number of registered nurses with neonatal intensive care certification increased 14 percent in 2019 compared with 2018. Our rate of 55 percent is higher than the required certification rate of 51 percent prescribed by Magnet. As noted by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), certification affirms advanced knowledge, skill, and practice to meet the challenges of modern nursing. Increasing/maintaining our certification rate is important because research findings have demonstrated a relationship between higher rates of nursing specialty certification and lower rates of negative patient outcomes, such as falls, hospital acquired pressure injuries, select hospital acquired infection rates and failure to rescue and death.

All attending physician extenders participated in a competency simulation for an infrequently performed procedure (chest tube placement) in the past 24 months.
It’s important that all health care providers in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit are competent in performing key life-saving procedures. Some of these procedures are used rarely, therefore we provide refresher courses and measure each provider’s competency in performing these procedures using hi-fidelity simulation. This allows our providers to feel confident in their skills and be ready to perform them when necessary.

August 27, 2019

On August 17, more than 500 patients and families traveled from all over the country for the 2019 Texas Children’s Newborn Center family reunion. The Texas-themed event celebrated former patients who graduated from the Newborn Center in 2018 after spending 10 days or more in our neonatal intensive care units at Texas Children’s Hospital Medical Center Campus and Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands.

The reunion was held at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women where parents shared stories of hope and triumph with other neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) families and reconnected with the nurses and doctors who delivered life-saving care to their critically ill babies.

During the reunion the families were able to visit with the employees, physicians and other families that they spent so much time with while being cared for in our NICU. On this day, families who unfortunately were unable to take their babies home also were remembered.

In addition to being reunited with Newborn Center Staff, the NICU reunion offered children’s entertainment including a DJ, games, photo booth, face painting, crafts, airbrush tattoos, appearances from Minnie Mouse, SpongeBob Square Pants and Pikachu, and guests enjoyed a good old-fashioned Texas barbecue.

The event was made possible in part by Texas Children’s NFAC Committee and Bad Pants, an organization that has raised more than $6 million over the past 20 years to support the Newborn Center through the annual Bad Pants Open golf tournament.

August 26, 2019

Formerly conjoined twins Knatalye Hope and Adeline Faith Mata, who turned 5 on April 11, have started Pre-K 4 in Littlefield, Texas, marking a significant milestone four years after being separated in a more than 20-hour surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Previously, the girls received various therapies, including physical, speech and occupational therapy and schooling in their home. Their mother, Elysse Mata, said the girls love their teachers and especially love recess. They’re also looking forward to taking the bus to school starting next week.

Following a complex pregnancy monitored by experts at Texas Children’s Fetal Center, the twins were safely delivered at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women in 2014. After spending the first 10 months of their lives in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit, they underwent a successful separation surgery on Feb. 17, 2015. A team of more than 26 clinicians including 12 surgeons, six anesthesiologists and eight surgical nurses, among others, worked together to separate the girls who shared a chest wall, lungs, pericardial sac (the lining of the heart), diaphragm, liver, intestines, colon and pelvis.

During the complex surgery, the team worked for approximately 23 hours on Knatalye and 26 hours on Adeline, with the official separation occurring approximately 18 hours into the surgery. Among the surgical subspecialties involved were pediatric surgery, plastic surgery, cardiovascular surgery, urology, liver surgery, orthopedic surgery and pediatric gynecology.

Both girls are doing extremely well and continue to thrive at home where they live with their parents, Eric and Elysse, older brother, Azariah, and younger sister, Mia. The family is very excited to see the girls sharing this special milestone together.

June 10, 2019

Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women has been designated a level IV maternal care facility, the highest level of care available. The designation was finalized late last week and followed a rigorous site visit conducted by the EMS/Trauma Systems Office of the Texas Department of State Health Services. A level IV maternal care facility provides comprehensive care for pregnant and postpartum patients, from those with low-risk conditions up to and including the most complex medical, surgical and/or obstetrical conditions that present a high-risk of maternal morbidity or mortality.

“This designation certifies that we offer the highest level of care for the most complex obstetric patients,” said Dr. Christina Davidson, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist and chief quality officer at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. “It speaks to the expertise of our clinical teams and the processes we have in place to ensure high-quality care and the positive outcomes we strive for.”

With the overall goal of reducing infant and maternal morbidity and mortality in the United States, the designation comes as the result of legislation passed in 2013 requiring Texas to establish and implement neonatal and maternal level of care designations by March 1, 2018. The intent of the legislation is to ensure both neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) and maternal care facilities have the resources and expertise to provide high-quality, specialized patient care that leads to the best outcomes for mothers and babies.

Texas is one of the first states requiring maternal care facilities undergo a site visit to verify the level of care provided to patients meets the Maternal Levels of Care classifications as defined in the Texas Administrative Code. Completing the designation process is a requirement to receive Medicaid reimbursement for obstetrical care by August 31, 2020.

“This designation is the fruit of the work we perform daily. It is recognition by the Department of State Health Services of Texas Children’s commitment and investment to maternal health,” said Dr. Nan Ybarra, director of nursing for inpatient services at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. “With over 6,200 deliveries annually, we are committed to serving women in our community and partnering with community hospitals to strengthen their maternal care processes and programs – our singular goal is to improve outcomes for pregnant women across Texas and beyond.”

Texas Children’s announced in January it opened one of the nation’s few intensive care units dedicated solely to obstetrical critical care. It is the only four-bed maternal ICU in the country staffed 24/7 by both pulmonary critical care and maternal-fetal care teams embedded in a hospital’s labor and delivery unit. This maternal ICU offers a specialized, private space for high-risk expectant and postpartum mothers with conditions such as sepsis, peripartum bleeding, placenta accreta, maternal heart disease and other serious conditions.

The hospital also has a nationally known placenta accreta spectrum program, where a team of experts provide comprehensive, multidisciplinary care for women with this potentially life-threatening pregnancy complication that occurs in approximately 1 in 1,000 to 2,000 pregnancies.

Additionally, in 2017, Texas Children’s obstetrics service partnered with the hospital’s Kangaroo Crew to create the Maternal Transport Service, further bolstering its reputation as a primary referral site for patients with high-risk pregnancies. The team, consisting of a Kangaroo Crew nurse, labor and delivery nurse, respiratory therapist, and EMT, can provide specialty care to mothers while enroute to the Pavilion for Women, helping the hospital’s community partners transport their sickest patients for the most optimal outcomes for mothers and babies.

“It’s crucial for women, especially those experiencing a high-risk pregnancy, to be educated about the level of obstetrical care available in the facility in which they plan to deliver,” said Dr. Michael Belfort, obstetrician/gynecologist-in-chief at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women.

April 29, 2019

Ella Grace Hurlbut, who was born prematurely at 27 weeks and who passed away at just 50 days old, has been the catalyst for bringing joy out of sorrow – most recently at Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands. Little Ella was the first neonatal intensive care unit baby that nurse Christina Snell cared for who passed away.

“I had a really hard time with it, and I didn’t know what to do with the pain that was having,” Snell said. “So, I decided I would do something good with it.”

That “something good” has culminated in the opening of a bereavement room called the Garden Room at The Woodland’s NICU. Designed by Snell and funded by her parents, Steve and Tammy Barr, the room is a non-sterile, peaceful environment where families have the chance to spend extra time saying goodbye to their child. The room also can be used by families who are getting used to caring for their MICU baby’s needs before going home.

Similar to the Butterfly Room at Main Campus’s NICU, the Garden Room features a crib, couch, two gliders, a chest full of clothes to dress their little ones in and a Caring Cradle. Donated by the Hurlbut family, the cradle cools a baby’s body after passing, therefore prolonging the amount of time a family can spend with their baby.

“Christina helped us make molds of Ella’s hands and feet, and to this day, those are my most treasured possessions,” Katie Hurlbut said. “I knew it wasn’t a coincidence when we found out she was the one leading the development of the bereavement room in The Woodlands.”

In addition to the Caring Cradle, the Hurlbut family also donated stuffed bears, clothes and linens to the Garden Room. Two artists, Alicia Kowalki “Los Queridos” and Genie Mack, provided beautiful pieces for the room’s walls.

“We are extremely thankful for the time and effort of those who contributed to this special space,” said Susan Romero, assistant clinical director of the NICU in The Woodlands. “It will give many families a great sense of peace.”

February 25, 2019

When Nicole Tenney took her daughter Aubree home from the hospital in August of 2017, the last thing on her mind was how often she would talk to her newborn and how she would make connections with her through speech.

All the new mom could think about was whether she was going to be able to make it through the day without having to call one of the many clinicians she and her daughter had gotten to know during their 136-day stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Texas Children’s Hospital’s Medical Center Campus.

“Aubree was born at 24 weeks gestation and overcame several challenges while at Texas Children’s,” Nicole said. “But she still had a long way to go, and I was willing to do anything to help keep her moving forward.”

So, when Aubree’s physicians, nurses and therapists with the SOAR Program, also known as the High-Risk Neonatal Follow Up Clinic, at Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands suggested that Nicole also participate in the hospital’s upWORDS Program, she jumped at the opportunity.

Developed in association with the LENA Research Foundation and generously supported by Kohl’s Care, Episcopal Health Foundation, Ed Rachel and the Powell Foundation, upWORDS gives parents the knowledge of how to improve the quantity and quality of language spoken with their child and educates them on the long-term impact language can have on their child’s success in life. The program includes group classes where parents learn to use the LENA System™ to monitor their home language environment and are taught simple techniques to increase interactive talk with their child.

To measure a participant’s home language environment, the LENA System™ uses a small recorder that fits inside a vest worn by the child. The recorder measures the amount of words a family speaks to their child and how much their child responds in return. The recording is then translated into data that the parents can use to see how much they are talking to their child and identify opportunities to increase the level of spoken interaction they have with their baby.

Texas Children’s via its Section of Public Health and Primary Care launched the upWORDS program in June 2016 as a pilot program at Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus in partnership with the Section of Public Health and Primary Care and Speech Therapy department at West Campus. Since then, 502 families have participated in the program, which is now being offered at 10 locations across the Greater Houston Area.

Late last year, Texas Children’s extended the program to NICU parents via two sets of classes at Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands. The classes are supported by the SOAR Program and several of the therapy teams in The Woodlands. About dozen family members – including Nicole and Aubree – attended the classes, graduating from the program on February 14.

“The biggest thing I learned was to give Aubree a chance to respond to me however she could,” Nicole said. “This and many of the other tips I learned really helped. Aubree’s development in speech increased by seven months during the time we were in upWORDS.”

Maura Dugan, manager of the Section of Public Health and Child Abuse Pediatrics, said some parents in the NICU classes increased the number of words spoken to their children by 25,000, and that 84 percent of upWORDS participants who graduated from upWORDS classes last year reported they spoke more to their children, and 79 percent reported an increase in the number of conversational turns or instances of back and forth verbal exchanges between them and their children.

Dugan said the NICU classes in particular have been a huge success as the majority of the participants are dealing with a lot of issues and greatly needed the support of experts as well as other parents who are going through similar things.

Led by upWORDS Health Educator Jennifer Howell and Listening and Spoken Language Therapist Allison Haggerty, the NICU classes not only teach parents and caregivers the importance of early talk and turn taking, but how to implement talking tips into their everyday routine like singing, pausing and chatting while out and about with their baby.

“With the help of staff and each other, parents work through some of the challenges they face in everyday life,” Dugan said. “And, each week they get to watch their children interact and achieve various milestones.”

Dr. Candice Allen, medical director of the SOAR Program, has helped get the upWORDS NICU class started and said they are a great addition to the services her team already provides families who are transitioning from the NICU to home.

“The more support we can give these parents and babies the better,” she said. “We want them to go on to lead healthy and productive lives, and language is a big part of that.”

To learn more about or register for the upWORDS program at Texas Children’s, click here.