August 9, 2016

81016anesthesiasurgery640Members of the Departments of Anesthesia and Surgery recently filled the Main OR in West Tower for the 2016 Anesthesia and Surgery Rodeo.

The annual training session gives department members a chance to get hands-on experience with the latest anesthesia and surgical equipment brought in by various medical vendors.

Some of the equipment tested during this year’s rodeo include:

  • AccuVein
  • aScope bronchoscope
  • ConMed
  • Crash Cart
  • Ethicon
  • Just Right 3mm Sealer
  • Legasure
  • Malignant Hypothermia
  • Sonosite X-Porte
  • Karl Storz
  • Surgical Airway Cart

81016nursingday640Texas Children’s Nursing Professional Development and Education Council hosted the 2016 Nursing Professional Day at the Pavilion for Women Conference Center on July 14 and 15. The purpose of the event was to enhance the knowledge of Texas Children’s registered nurses in an effort to improve professional practice and patient outcomes. The Nursing Professional Day agenda was driven from the results of the Annual Learning Needs Assessment.

Senior Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer Mary Jo Andre, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, kicked off the event with opening remarks on the value of lifelong learning and its impact on patients and nurses. To support the value of education, the event was broadcasted via telehealth to eight different sites in an effort to reach all Texas Children’s nurses.

Nursing Professional Day provided the opportunity for nurses at all levels to participate either on the planning committee, as podium or poster presenter, facilitator of a skill station or educate at an exhibit table. Twenty of the topics presented offered continuing nursing education hours.

More than three hundred nurses in attendance had the opportunity to collaborate with 15 nursing schools as they look to advance their education. Twenty-five internal exhibitors were available for the nurses to learn about obtaining their certification, joining a professional organization and how other department’s value and support the nursing role.

The presentations are available to view on the Nursing Professional Development team site. Nursing Professional Day will be held at Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus on Tuesday, September 13. Encourage your nursing colleagues to attend.

72716Drchumpatazi175Dr. Bruno Chumpitazi, an assistant professor of pediatric gastroenterology at Baylor College of Medicine and clinical director of Texas Children’s Neurogastroenterology and Motility Program, recently received the Baylor College of Medicine Rising Star Clinician Award.

This annual award recognizes outstanding up and coming clinicians for their exemplary contributions to clinical excellence and expertise, consistent high level of patient care, commendable leadership skills and continuous exemplary service to the Baylor community.

Chumpitazi’s contributions to the field of pediatric gastroenterology, particularly in the area of gastrointestinal (GI) motility disorders, have received numerous accolades from his Texas Children’s and Baylor colleagues.

“As director of a cutting edge, productive, and nationally recognized clinical program, Dr. Chumpitazi has truly been a rising star within our department and within the College,” said Dr. Mark W. Kline, Texas Children’s physician-in-chief and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor. “He successfully introduced procedures such as anorectal manometry, colonic manometry, antroduodental manometry and esophageal manometry at Texas Children’s. He also introduced pH/impedance testing, the current gold standard of gastric esophageal reflux testing.”

Texas Children’s Neurogastroenterology and Motility Program is on the cutting edge of clinical care and research for children with gastrointestinal functional and motility disorders. Individuals within the program work with others throughout Baylor and Texas Children’s to offer several multidisciplinary programs (including an esophageal achalasia program, neurostimulation program, and rumination program); gastrointestinal motility evaluations (including wireless capsule manometry); and therapies (including guided imagery).

Chumpitazi has worked with child life specialists and multi-sensory distraction devices to make procedures as pediatric friendly as possible. In addition to the previously mentioned efforts, Chumpitazi has created a multidisciplinary program with our physical therapy colleagues for children with defecation disorders amenable to therapy. Each of these programs are highly specialized, were created to address a pressing clinical need, and are not available in the vast majority of pediatric gastroenterology programs throughout the country.

The Motility program’s success can be measured in part by the high volume of national, regional and local consultation requests for the program’s clinical expertise and the high volume of specialized procedures completed.

“I’m extremely humbled by this award and want to emphasize that I’m just one individual within a fantastic team environment,” Chumpitazi said. “It’s been a pleasure working with other like-minded individuals throughout Baylor and Texas Children’s to improve the health of the children that we see.”

“Dr. Chumpitazi is an excellent example of a rising star clinician,” said Dr. Benjamin Shneider, chief of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at Texas Children’s. “He is a true triple threat, with tremendous skills as a clinician, educator and investigator. I am certain he will continue to represent Baylor and Texas Children’s as a national leader within his field and I am grateful he is part of our team.”

Click here for more information about the Neurogastroenterology and Motility Program.

81016smithvisit640On July 11, Executive Commissioner Charles Smith of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (THHSC) met with executive leaders at Texas Children’s Hospital and toured several areas of the hospital’s medical center campus to learn more about how we strive to provide the best care to women and children in the Greater Houston community and throughout Texas.

In his new role as THHSC executive commissioner, Smith will oversee the operation of the state’s 58,000 employees across four health care agencies, including the Medicaid/CHIP division and many health care services that impact the care that children and women receive at Texas Children’s.

Dr. Mark Shen, who serves as the chairman of the Children’s Hospital Association of Texas board and is president of Dell Children’s Medical Center, along with Stacy Wilson, president of the Children’s Hospital Association of Texas, also joined the visit and highlighted the collaboration that occurs among all freestanding children’s hospitals in Texas.

Chief of Neonatology Dr. Gautham Suresh, Vice President of Nursing Judy Swanson and NICU Nursing Director Heather Cherry toured the group through the Level IV NICU where they met with several patient families and heard their touching stories. As the state of Texas undergoes its process to designate NICU levels of care, the tour allowed our subject matter experts to educate the commissioner regarding the extensive differences between a Level 1 and Level 4 NICU.

The group also met with Dr. Christian Niedzwecki, medical director of the inpatient rehabilitation unit, and Shelley Ellison, director of the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. During their tour of Texas Children’s Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, the group discussed the concerns shared by physicians and patient families regarding Medicaid therapy rate cuts, which will impact this service line and the care provided to Texas Children’s patients with rehabilitation needs following a physical injury or medical condition.

91015drhairaward640Dr. Amy Hair, a neonatologist and program director of the Neonatal Nutrition Program at Texas Children’s Hospital, was recently awarded a $350,000 research grant from the Gerber Foundation.

This generous grant will support the Targeted Fortification Project, a neonatal nutrition study led by Hair that will evaluate the short-term effects of a high versus standard protein diet on growth outcomes and body composition in the smallest preterm infants weighing between 500 to 1,000 grams.

“While an exclusive human milk diet is associated with improved outcomes in our highest risk neonates, it is important to evaluate the benefits of a high protein exclusive human milk diet and the possible positive changes in body composition, specifically lean mass, in these infants,” Hair said.

Using a randomized study design, infants in the control group will receive a standard protein diet that consists of mother’s own milk or donor human milk with donor human milk derived fortifier. Based on the amount of protein in the human milk, fortification of feeds will be adjusted to reach an average of 3.5 to 3.8 grams per kilogram per day of protein. Data will be recorded for milk analysis, nutrition and infant growth.

The intervention group will receive the same standard feeding regimen with the addition of extra human milk fortification to give a high protein diet. Based on the amount of protein in the human milk, fortification of feeds will be adjusted to reach an average of 4.2 to 4.5 grams per kilogram per day of protein.

Both diets will be continued until approximately 35 to 36 weeks postmenstrual age (an infant’s gestational age at birth plus postnatal age) and a bone mineral density and body composition scan will be performed.

“We hypothesize that infants who receive a high protein diet will have more lean mass and a 15 percent improvement in length velocity at 36 weeks postmenstrual age compared to infants who received only a standard protein diet,” Hair said.

Much of Hair’s research has been dedicated to improving the long-term outcomes of premature and critically ill infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Her work in neonatal nutrition has led to significant changes in clinical practice in the NICU at Texas Children’s and other pediatric hospitals.

In her study published in Breastfeeding Medicine, Hair found that premature infants weighting less than 1,250 grams at birth improved their growth outcomes in the NICU after being fed an exclusive human milk-based diet. In a separate study published in the Journal of Pediatrics, Hair found that adding a human milk-based cream in the exclusive human milk diets of premature infants resulted in better growth outcomes in terms of weight and length than infants who received just the exclusive human milk diet.

As a result of Hair’s extensive research in neonatal nutrition, Texas Children’s Newborn Center implemented an exclusive human milk feeding protocol in 2009, which has led to a 77 percent decrease in the rate of necrotizing enterocolitis, a devastating intestinal disease that affects premature infants.

“I am grateful to the Gerber Foundation for providing Texas Children’s with this research grant,” said Hair, who is also an assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. “This will help advance neonatal nutrition research to continue to improve the outcomes of premature and critically ill infants.”

81016qualityposter640Have you implemented a quality improvement project in the last 18 to 24 months that aims to significantly improve patient outcomes and safety, operational processes, patient experiences, and/or organizational systems at Texas Children’s? If your project has implemented at least one round/PDSA cycle of improvement, please consider sharing your work at this year’s Quality Day.

Below are important dates to keep in mind for employees interested in submitting a poster:

  • Deadline for intent to submit poster: Monday, August 15.
  • Participant notification of acceptance: Tuesday, August 23
  • Deadline for poster submission for printing: Thursday, September 1.

The selected posters will be presented during poster sessions at the 2016 Texas Children’s Hospital Quality Day on Friday, September 16 at the Pavilion for Women Conference Center. The theme this year is “Leading Tirelessly: Always Improving.”

Organized by Texas Children’s Quality Education Team, Quality Day will showcase the exciting improvement initiatives implemented by the graduates of the Advanced Quality Improvement 14 class as well as spotlight other projects developed by staff and leaders across the organization that are aimed at improving outcomes and processes.

For questions regarding the Quality Day Call for Posters, contact Dana Danaher at Ext.4-2160. Be sure to click on the flyer to get more details on poster requirements.

August 1, 2016

8316chroniclephilanthropy250Texas Children’s is the honored sponsor for every Tuesday’s “Houston Legends” series. For more than 20 weeks, we will showcase the legendary care Texas Children’s has provided since 1954, and focus on milestone moments in our unique history. Also, a complementary website offers a more detailed look at our past, our story and our breakthroughs.

On the right is the Texas Children’s ad that is featured in this week’s Chronicle. Click the ad to visit our companion website at texaschildrens.org/legendarycare. The website will change weekly to complement the newspaper ad, which will be published in section A of the Chronicle on Tuesdays for the next 10 weeks. We also will spotlight this special feature weekly on Connect, so stay tuned to learn and share our rich history.

Click here to visit the Promise website.