Representatives from more than 15 institutions and leaders from Epic, Omnicell and Codonics attended a conference hosted by Texas Children’s Hospital on May 23 and 24. The meeting focused on the innovation, integration, and interoperability of systems used in the medication use process within the operating room.
The Department of Pharmacy, in collaboration with Anesthesiology and Information Services, invited these three vendors to share their recent innovations and hear the collective voice of users that run these systems together. The goals were to leverage technology to optimize patient care and to initiate collaborative and constructive conversation to make improvements in workflow and safety.
The discussions provided opportunities to discover new ideas, share lessons learned, and gain knowledge from one another.
May 3, 2016
Texas Children’s Pediatrics is making it easier than ever for families to take care of what’s most important to them – their children’s health. Whether they need a same-day sick visit or want to schedule a well-check visit months in advance, our families no longer have to wait for office hours to call their primary care practice. Now, all they have to do is log in to MyChart anytime to make their next appointment.
Families also can:
Send non-urgent messages to the care team
Request prescription refills
Complete questionnaires before appointments
Request medical record copies
Access their child’s medical record, including: test results, allergies/medications, after-visit summaries, growth charts, and immunization records
“We want to make it as easy as possible for our families to access the care they need for their child, even when life gets too busy to call the office between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.,” said Sara Montenegro, director of regional operations for Texas Children’s Pediatrics. “This new feature on MyChart gives access to scheduling appointments 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, providing a great service to our families.”
Dr. Jennifer Dietrich, chief of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology, and Dr. Julie Hakim, Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology fellow, have been awarded $50,000 recently by the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI) for their work on customizable 3-D printed pediatric vaginal stents and vaginal dilators. The stents and dilators are designed for girls born with congenital vaginal abnormalities.
This is the third year the NCC-PDI has held a competition to recognize and fund new and innovative pediatric devices. In addition to receiving the funding, the NCC-PDI will share its expertise in design development and help bring the funded products to market. From the 37 applications this year, six were chosen for funding.
“Because of the need for dilators or vaginal stents determined by women born with congenital anomalies of the reproductive tract and by women who have undergone surgery or radiation for gynecologic cancers, we know there is a market for customized devices such as these,” Dietrich said.
“It has been an incredible learning process during my fellowship to move from seeing a need among our pediatric patients undergoing vaginal surgery, to IRB and IACUC approval, to prototyping and now to company formation and product development. We are looking forward to our products providing better outcomes for our patients,” said Dr. Hakim.
NCC-PDI was formed in September 2013 through the FDA’s Pediatric Device Consortia Grant Program to provide infrastructure support and expert consultation on pediatric medical device development throughout the product development lifecycle.
April 19, 2016
Before using Epic’s MyChart as their primary means of communicating with patients about routine matters, Dr. David Coats’ staff in the Division of Ophthalmology spent a lot of time transcribing conversations they had with patients and families into the hospital’s electronic health record.
With MyChart, that process is automated, saving staff valuable time and creating better documentation that can easily be accessed by both the patient and Coats’ medical staff.
“I believe that as we see increased utilization of MyChart, our staff will become more efficient and effective,” Coats said. “I also believe the health of our patients will improve and that there is significant potential for better patient satisfaction scores.”
This is just one of many examples of how Epic directly impacts patient care and will continue to do so the more it is used and improved. Texas Children’s started using the electronic health record software in 2008 and continues to see benefits from it organization wide.
“Technology is at the center of everything we do,” said Julie McGuire, director of Enterprise Systems for Information Services. “It impacts our culture, our quality of care and our effectiveness. To continue to lead in medicine and nursing, we must continue to advance technology.”
To help continue the momentum built over the past seven years, Texas Children’s is preparing to upgrade Epic as part of the FY16 Epic Ecosystem Lifecycle Program, which includes a new version of Epic, OnBase and other infrastructure updates to ensure a safe, reliable and secure environment.
Epic version 2015 will debut Sunday, June 12, delivering more than 700 new and enhanced features to improve tasks Epic users do every day, including enhancements to InBasket, Chart Search, Care Everywhere (Interoperability) and MyChart.
Questions?
To keep up with the latest Epic update news:
Visit the Epic Hub for key information about new and improved functionality coming your way
Texas Children’s is the fourth pediatric hospital in Texas to offer magnetoencephalography (MEG), a non-invasive brain imaging technology that assists neurosurgeons in developing more precise surgical plans for patients with epilepsy and other seizure disorders, ultimately enhancing their long-term outcomes.
The MEG scanner records very tiny magnetic fields produced by electrical activity in the brain to identify the sources of normal and abnormal brain function with millimeter precision. Unlike X-ray and CT scans, MEG does not emit radiation. Instead, it works like a very sensitive microphone that records magnetic fields emitted by brain cells instead of sound.
“MEG is an invaluable tool in evaluating epilepsy patients for potentially curative brain surgery,” said Texas Children’s neurologist Dr. Michael Quach. “Prior to MEG, the only technology capable of localizing brain activity with such high temporal and spatial resolution was intracranial EEG monitoring, which requires exposing the surface of the brain with surgery in order to implant EEG electrodes. With MEG technology, we can achieve similar localization without the need for open brain surgery.”
When patients come in for a MEG scan, the MEG technician places electrodes onto the patient’s scalp before positioning the patient’s head into the scanner where the machine collects information from 306 sensors simultaneously every millisecond. The MEG images are superimposed on the MRI to correlate where the magnetic activities of brain function occur in relation to the patient’s brain structures.
When MEG and MRI are analyzed together, physicians can identify the sensory regions of the brain – like speech, touch, vision and motor function – and can localize the sources of seizures and other abnormal brain activity. With this combined information, surgical procedures can be planned more precisely to remove abnormal brain tissue while minimizing damage to parts of the brain that function normally.
“One of the great things about MEG is it gives pediatric patients a chance to qualify for epileptic surgery,” said MEG technician Michael LaRose. “With this increased data, our neurologists and neurosurgeons have a better chance of coming up with a surgical plan that may help these children with seizures.”
The MEG procedure usually lasts about an hour and a half but the amount of time it takes to complete the scan varies for each patient. Since the MEG lab opened last November, Texas Children’s has performed 25 MEG procedures.
Since very few hospitals in Houston are equipped with this advanced imaging technology, Texas Children’s also offers this service to Baylor College of Medicine physicians who treat adult patients.
March 15, 2016
As Texas Children’s continues to expand our facilities and services to advance health care for children and women around the world, it is of the utmost importance for us to identify, recruit, engage and retain the best talent. To keep up with this expansive growth, Talent Acquisition is launching national recruitment strategies and investing in new and advanced technology. On Monday, April 18, Texas Children’s will be going live with a new applicant tracking system (ATS).
“These are exciting times for Texas Children’s as we are in the midst of unprecedented growth for the organization,” said Matt Perkins, assistant vice president of Talent Acquisition. “We need to continue to grow our community of team members who will unite, energize and inspire Texas Children’s with their infinite passion to deliver on our important mission.”
Powered by iCims, this ATS provides us with new technology, which works with PeopleSoft to enhance our current recruitment processes and experiences for both external and internal candidates, our hiring leaders as well as new hires.
“There are many features that will help us throughout the recruitment process in a more thoughtful approach that reflects Texas Children’s thought leadership as a premium health care employer,” Perkins said. “There are also social media components that will further engage prospective candidates.”
Learn more about Texas Children’s new ATS by clicking here.
As part of the transition to this new system, five online webinars will be available to Hiring Leaders from Tuesday, March 29 to Thursday, March 31. Hiring Leaders will receive a separate communication from HR Communications with details about these training sessions and how to register.
February 16, 2016
An armadillo with thick, long eyelashes whistles as she notices a problem with the blood flow in a child’s heart. Almost immediately an army of robot-like caregivers race into the hospital room and fix the problem.
No, this is not your typical medical setting. This is an imaginary world made to help children with heart problems better understand their diagnosis and potential treatment options. Created by a team led by Chief of Cardiology Dr. Daniel Penny, the series of almost 40 animated videos features Ruby, an armadillo; Beau, a bison; and a group of caregivers called Blings.
Ruby and Beau’s role in the videos is to identify the problem with a child’s heart, call in the Blings for help and explain – in very simple terms – what’s happening and how it’s affecting the patient. The Blings fix whatever is wrong while hopping in and out of colorful cars and using a cadre of MacGyver-like tools.
“The aim of our project is to improve the health literacy of the children and parents who come to us with heart disease,” Penny said. “If we can empower them through information, we can likely improve their treatment outcome and overall quality of life.”
To effectively communicate complex issues such as ventricular septal defect and patent ductus arteriosis, Penny is working with Michael Liddy, a friend and Australian animator, to script the 4- to 7-minute videos and create their characters, sound effects and musical score, all of which are done very intentionally and with the young age of the viewer in mind.
An additional bonus to the production of the videos, which is being funded by a grant from ExxonMobil, is the voices of Ruby and Beau are recorded at Texas Children’s Hospital by employees Hasti Taghi and Dr. Stuart Hall.
“We were very lucky to get the voices of Ruby and Beau in house,” Penny said. “They definitely add a special touch.”
To date, six of the videos in the series have been completed and were unveiled at a February 15 red carpet premier at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women (click here to view a video). Doctors, patients and families across the organization and beyond can access the videos via Texas Children’s website at http://www.texaschildrens.org/hearteducation.
Penny and his team will continue to add to the animated series and work on another series of videos that educate patients on certain types of routine procedures done at the average heart center.
“We hope that having a program like this any child who enters a heart center will be able to get a feel for what they are going to experience,” Penny said.
Representatives from more than 15 institutions and leaders from Epic, Omnicell and Codonics attended a conference hosted by Texas Children’s Hospital on May 23 and 24. The meeting focused on the innovation, integration, and interoperability of systems used in the medication use process within the operating room.
