November 16, 2018

Your name, title and department. How long have you worked here?
Jackie Pacheco, Health Coach in the Employee Health and Well-Being Department. I have worked at Texas Children’s for almost three years.

Tell us how you found out you won a super star award.
We were in our monthly HR Staff Meeting and during the thank you and congratulations section, my assistant director announced to the team that I had won the Super Star Award for the month of September. It was a complete surprise and I was overwhelmed with the warmth and amazing response from my colleagues.

What does it mean to be recognized for the hard work you do? How has the organization helped you achieve your personal and professional goals?
It means a lot to be recognized for all of the hard work that you put in. I work with an amazing team, and our work always impacts the people who work here at Texas Children’s with all of our health and well-being initiatives. I work with incredible people who support and encourage me every day and care for me both professionally and personally.

I recently became a certified wellness and health coach and have grown in my department because of this. I received encouragement from my leaders, and just knowing they are behind me and want to see me succeed, pushes me to do my best every day.

What do you think makes someone at Texas Children’s a super star?
A super star is someone who embraces the core values and finds a way to incorporate them into everything they do. They show up every day with a positive attitude and are enthusiastic about their work. We must always remember that we never know who we are going to make an impression on, so might as well always strive to make it positive.

What is your motivation for going above and beyond every day at work?
Knowing that I can make an impact on any single employee within the organization, keeps me going. Working on the Well-Being team, my job is to take care of the health and well-being of employees throughout our organization. If I can help our workforce develop healthy habits and empower them to achieve their well-being goals, I will not only help that individual but also develop a culture of health for the organization.

What is the best thing about working at Texas Children’s?
The best thing about working at Texas Children’s is the people. You will always see smiling faces in the hallways, and people are always willing to help. Our workforce’s enthusiasm and pride to work here is always eminent.

What does it mean to you that everyone at Texas Children’s is considered a leader? What is your leadership definition?
It is great to know that everyone who works at Texas Children’s is considered a leader. My definition of leadership is: A leader must enjoy what they are doing and maintain an enthusiastic, positive and optimistic attitude. Listen if they want to be heard and always remember that the most powerful tool that you possess is your own personal example.

Anything else you want to share?
I would like to say a special thank you to Julia Gaffney for taking the time to nominate me. I would also like to thank all of the Wellness Ambassadors who help promote wellness throughout the organization; without them my job wouldn’t be possible.

November 13, 2018

From our three hospital campuses to our health centers, urgent care and pediatric practices, Texas Children’s continues to make great strides in improving access to our patients and their families.

As part of Patient Access 2.0, Texas Children’s launched online scheduling in both English and Spanish on November 12 that allows current patients, new patients and referred patients to schedule appointments via DocASAP, Texas Children’s online scheduling partner. Texas Children’s is the only hospital of the top five on the U.S. News & World Report Honor Roll to offer online scheduling to patients.

“Since most families prefer online scheduling, it is important for us to pay attention to their needs and do more to help them out,” said Texas Children’s Surgeon-in-Chief Dr. Larry Hollier and co-chair of the Access Executive Steering Committee. “Because we really care about our families, we have to keep the doors open to our patients to ensure they get the right care, at the right time and at the right place.”

Led by Project Manager Sarah Ringold, Co-chairs Ryan Breaux, Diesa Samp, Jodi Harris and Executive Sponsor Michele Birsinger, online scheduling will be implemented in waves:

  • Wave 1 (November 2018): Allergy/Immunology, Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Endocrine, Neurology, Ophthalmology, Plastic Surgery, Pulmonology and Urology
  • Wave 2 (January 2019): Adolescent Sports Medicine, Centers for Women and Children Women’s Services, Genetics, Infectious diseases, Nephrology, Neurosurgery, Otolaryngology, Pediatric Surgery, Retrovirology, Rheumatology and Orthopedics
  • Wave 3 (March 2019): Centers for Women and Children Pediatrics, Gynecologic Oncology, Physical Medicine and Rehab, Psychiatry, Psychology, Reproductive Endo/Infertility, Urologic Gynecology and Women’s Psychiatry

Texas Children’s patients can access the online scheduling button on Texas Children’s homepage. Once the button is clicked from the homepage, patients land on the new texaschildrens.org/appointment page and can view all scheduling options available: online scheduling, MyChart or calling the Customer Contact Care Center. Patients can also access online scheduling directly from provider profiles and department pages. From there, a scheduling widget will appear where patients and their families can schedule appointments online with a provider.

“Our patient families expect to be able to do so much online today, and it only makes sense that we offer them this capability as well,” said Ringold, who is also a practice administrator in Urology. “This new scheduling tool will also be beneficial to our providers as online scheduling typically results in better template utilization and reduced no show and cancellation rates.”

This project would not have been possible without the collaboration from multiple departments including Information Services, Marketing, Patient Experience, Central Scheduling, Revenue Cycle and HIM. Practice administrators, ambulatory directors and community leaders also devoted time, energy and expertise in this project.

“We have accomplished so much in a relatively short period of time through these collaborative efforts,” said Senior Vice President and Patient Access Leader Richelle Fleischer. “It has been exciting to see this project go from an initial request for proposal to actual implementation. It truly was a team effort.”

In addition to the online scheduling option via DocASAP, patients who sign up for MyChart can schedule their appointments through the MyChart online patient portal. Since implementing direct scheduling via MyChart in March of this year, over 2,000 appointments have been made across the hospital system.

Click here to access the FAQ for online scheduling via DocASAP.

Patient Access Initiative

Since the March 2018 launch of the Patient Access initiative, Texas Children’s has implemented several solutions to improve patient access across the organization. Click here to watch this video.

Below is an archive of recent Connect stories highlighting our patient access initiatives:

Texas Children’s implements first wave of solutions to enhance patient access
MyChart Madness: Scoring points for patient access system wide
MyChart Madness results in, enhancements continue to improve patient access
Patient access initiative continues to generate positive results for patient families
MyChart Shoot for the Stars Challenge: Scoring points for patient access

Early on the morning of November 7, an excited group including Texas Children’s Hospital clinical leadership, executives and members of the Kangaroo Crew and Mission Control teams gathered on the roof of Lester and Sue Smith Legacy Tower for a special ribbon cutting ceremony marking the opening of our new helistop.

Watch the video or view the photo gallery below.

“The Lester and Sue Smith Legacy Tower has always been about improving care for the sickest children we see,” said Surgeon-in-Chief Dr. Larry Hollier. “The helistop is important because it improves access for those children. Whether they’re being transported as part of a scene response for an auto accident or transferred from another hospital, we can now get children and women here in very rapid fashion within a 150-mile radius.”

The helistop is the final element of Smith Legacy Tower to go live and represents the culmination of a major expansion at our Texas Medical Center campus. Months of planning and multidisciplinary cooperation between medical staff, Transport Services and engineering and facilities teams went into preparations for the helistop opening.

“A tremendous amount of work has gone into making sure that the helistop is very safe – safe for the helicopters coming in, safe for those crew that are delivering the patients to us, and safe for our own staff,” said Executive Vice President Mark Mullarkey. “Bert Gumeringer, Gail Parazynski and Deb D’Ambrosio and their teams have been instrumental both in making sure we’re prepared to open the helistop and really in bringing Smith Legacy Tower to full completion.”

Extensive simulation exercises were also held to prepare care and transport teams for potential eventualities they may face, as well as to analyze and improve processes. This included helicopter landings, transferring patients from the helicopter crew to Texas Children’s transport teams, and moving patients from the helistop at Smith Legacy Tower to Trauma and the Emergency Center.

“The helicopter simulation was fantastic,” said Dr. Jeanine Graf, chief medical officer at West Campus and pediatric medical director of the Kangaroo Crew. “We brought together members from our trauma, surgery, ICU and NICU teams, as well as our experts in maternal-fetal medicine, for training and simulations, which were coordinated by our Texas Children’s Simulations Center. Dr. Cara Doughty really did an excellent job demonstrating how more than a hundred folks would be involved in the communication and execution of a helicopter landing at Texas Children’s.”

The helistop at Smith Legacy Tower is the third helistop in the Texas Children’s system, with others in operation at West Campus and Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands. The addition of the new helistop will facilitate the rapid transport of patients across all populations, including neonatal and maternal patients. Before the helistop opening, Texas Children’s received roughly 150 helicopter transports a year, which landed at nearby partner institutions. Now with our own helistop, we’ll be able to offer our care to even more patients who need us.

“The helistop really changes things for us,” said Deb D’Ambrosio, RN, director of Transport Services and Mission Control. “We’re certainly expecting high volume, but with the processes we’ve developed with our helicopter vendors and the high level of coordination between Transport Services and Mission Control, this is going to be so much better for our patients.”

On November 9, a memorial service was held to celebrate the legacy of Dr. William T. Shearer, an internationally respected leader, clinician, investigator and mentor in pediatric immunology and HIV/AIDS.

More than 100 attendees – including members of Shearer’s family and several of his trainees and colleagues who worked with him for many years – shared memories of Shearer, who was the founder and former chief of the Allergy and Immunology Service at Texas Children’s Hospital for 34 years and a professor of Pediatrics and Immunology at Baylor College of Medicine for 40 years.

For many who knew him, Shearer was described by his colleagues as an incredibly compassionate mentor. Throughout his career, he mentored 117 trainees as the Program Director of the Allergy and Immunology Fellowship Training Program at Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine.

One of his trainees was Dr. Carla Davis, chief of Immunology, Allergy and Rheumatology Service at Texas Children’s, who met Shearer as a pediatric resident. After attending a program he founded – Texas Allergy Asthma and Immunology Society’s Primary Care Residence Conference – her interest in the field began.

“As a resident, I was captivated by his unique blue coat, his enthusiasm for patients, and the field of immunology,” said Davis, who delivered the opening remarks at the ceremony. “I was fascinated by his teaching ability and the fact that he thought I would be a great allergist immunologist. I am honored to carry on the legacy.”

Texas Children’s Physician-in-Chief Dr. Mark W. Kline also shared memorable and humorous anecdotes of Shearer. On one rare occasion, he recalled dropping by the office on a Sunday morning, and saw Shearer dressed up in his suit and tie, either working on a grant or writing textbook chapters for the world’s premier textbook of clinical immunology for which he was co-editor for over 20 years. It wasn’t long after they met that Shearer told him, “I’m here in the office 364 days each year. I usually take Christmas day off.”

“No one worked harder or was more dedicated to his patients and trainees than Dr. Shearer,” Kline said. “His passion was always around making life better for the patients and the families that he served. I learned an enormous amount from him during the formative stages of my career development. He was a mentor and friend for nearly 30 years, and I will miss him tremendously.”

Shearer’s illustrious career became widely known when he assumed the role as the primary physician for Texas Children’s most famous patient, David “The Bubble Boy” Vetter, which led to revolutionary immunologic discoveries. His mother, Carol Ann Demaret, delivered a heartfelt tribute to Shearer.

“Many families such as mine who have been so intensely affected by the science he dedicated his life’s work to will never forget Dr. Shearer,” Demaret said. “Lives exist because of him, and a whole world of happiness. I know, because I have embraced many of the children and young adults myself. Dr. Shearer, we will keep and protect your memories forever in our hearts and in our souls.”

Guest speakers who delivered touching tributes to Shearer included Drs. Tom Fleisher, Morey Haymond, Celine Hanson, Jennifer Pate and Kristy Murray.

After the memorial service, guests attended a reception where pictures, awards and memorabilia with Shearer were displayed including a booklet that contained many tributes his colleagues and trainees had written to him over the years. Following the reception, a ribbon cutting and tour officially opened the William T. Shearer Center for Human Immunobiology located on the third floor of Feigin Tower.

Click here to watch a video tribute of Shearer in his own words.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will highlight some of this year’s Caught You Caring Award winners and how they go above and beyond for their patients and colleagues.

Caught You Caring is a recognition program offered to patients and families, as well as staff, to recognize employees who have gone above and beyond their role to provide compassion and kindness to another person. This could be in the care of a patient, service to a family, or in support of a coworker. Launched in 2015 in ambulatory surgery, the now system-wide program has recognized many employees, including the eight listed below who were honored by the program this year.

To thank this year’s winners for their compassion and dedication to the Texas Children’s mission, they will head to NRG Stadium on December 9 to watch the Houston Texans play the Indianapolis Colts. The Texans-Colts game is sponsored by Texas Children’s Hospital and celebrates the National Football League’s Play 60 campaign, which encourages children to be active 60 minutes a day to help decrease childhood obesity.

The tickets to the game are one of the benefits of Texas Children’s Hospital being the official children’s hospital of the Houston Texans football team. The goal of Texas Children’s and the Texans partnership is to inspire children to lead healthier, more active lives.

Experience Consultant with Family and Patient Services Lorianne Classen said being able to reward our Caught You Caring recipients in this way is truly amazing.

“Recognizing people for their hard work goes a long way when it comes to creating a positive work environment,” she said. “So many members of our Texas Children’s family go above and beyond each and every day for our patients, families and colleagues, and we appreciate that very much.”

Texas Children’s wants to continue to recognize those who take great pride in the work they do and encourages patients, families and employees to catch someone who is making a difference. Caught You Caring boxes and cards can be found throughout the Texas Children’s system for patients and families to fill out and recognize staff. Employees can fill out a Caught You Caring form on Connect. Cards and online submissions will be distributed to leaders for staff recognition.

Click here to learn more about the Caught You Caring Program.

Click the links below to read more about this year’s Play 60 ticket recipients and how they were caught caring.

Rosie Alvarado
Hilda Andrade
Yaneth Arrue
Lisa Carr
Melanie Johnson
Krista Miller
Melissa Starner
Erick Talamantes

On November 8, Texas Children’s friends and supporters attended The Forum Luncheon highlighting the amazing work of Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. Held at The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown Houston, the program shined a bright light on the many successes the Pavilion for Women has had since opening its doors in 2012.

In just six short years, more than 37,000 babies have been delivered at the hospital, including 1,200 sets of multiples, one of which was a set of sextuplets. Almost 8,000 babies have been treated in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and many lives have been saved or greatly altered by the talented clinical staff that works tirelessly to improve the lives of women and children.

“I can’t imagine Texas Children’s without the Pavilion for Women and am thrilled we had the vision, aspiration and courage to build it,” said President and CEO Mark Wallace during his opening remarks at the forum. “In just five years, we translated our vision for this new paradigm of care into a reality that has helped countless mothers and their children.”

Hired to lead Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women shortly after it opened, Dr. Michael Belfort, fetal surgeon and Ob-Gyn-in-chief, headlined the forum’s program taking the almost 400 people in the audience on a journey through the organization’s wide variety of services offered to women and children.

Some of those services areas include:

  • Pediatric and adolescent gynecology
  • Fertility
  • High-risk pregnancy
  • Fetal surgery and prenatal care
  • Global women’s health
  • Menopause and urogynecology
  • Mental health

“I was drawn to Texas Children’s from the very beginning because of the vision they had for women and children,” Belfort said. “We have come a long way in a short time, and while I’m proud of our accomplishments, I don’t think we should ever stop trying to be even better.”

The forum’s program ended with an emotional story told by Emma Tramuto, who at 17 weeks pregnant was told her baby, Ella Rose, was diagnosed with gastroschisis, which is failure of the abdomen to close completely, resulting in the baby having her intestines outside of her body.

Emma and her husband James visited many physicians and surgeons, and were told multiple times their only choice was to terminate the pregnancy – that is until they came to Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women where a team of clinicians cared for Emma and Ella Rose, who is now a vibrant 6-year-old little girl.

“Miracles happen every day at Texas Children’s Hospital and perhaps the biggest miracles are the ones for the tiniest patients,” Emma said. “Our daughter is one of these incredible miracles. Had it not been for Texas Children’s Hospital Ella Rose would not be here today. The doctors and nurses who cared for Ella gave her a chance at life she would not have had one otherwise.”

On November 10, Texas Children’s Chief of Pediatric Cardiology Dr. Daniel Penny was named the American Heart Association’s (AHA) 2018 Helen B. Taussig Memorial Lecturer. The prestigious honor was awarded at the AHA’s Scientific Sessions in Chicago, Illinois, following Penny’s presentation “Working Together towards New Levels of Excellence in the Care of Children with Heart Disease.”

“I am truly grateful to receive this distinguished award from the AHA,” said Penny. “As a pediatric cardiologist, I believe it is my responsibility to carry on the incredible legacy of innovators such as Dr. Taussig, and it is a privilege to do so at Texas Children’s. Every day, my goal is to enhance the level of cardiology care we provide to our patients.”

Penny’s receipt of this historic award forges yet another link between Texas Children’s Hospital and the remarkable legacy of Dr. Helen B. Taussig, the pioneering pediatric cardiologist. Taussig was best known for her work with children born with serious heart defects – most notably blue baby syndrome – as well as for her co-development of the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt, the first surgical procedure for children with pulmonary stenosis.

The list of past Taussig lecture awardees features the names of some of the most renowned innovators in the field of pediatric heart disease, including Dr. Dan G. McNamara – Texas Children’s first director of cardiology. McNamara, who was a student of Taussig’s while at Johns Hopkins Hospital, was responsible for the design and integration of Texas Children’s first cardiac catheterization lab, which significantly advanced the diagnosis of heart ailments in children.

“Dr. Penny exemplifies the best of pediatric cardiology,” said Physician-in-Chief Dr. Mark W. Kline. “Drs. Taussig and McNamara would be proud of the work he and his team are doing to further advance the specialty.”

Penny, originally from Cork Ireland, completed his medical degree at University College Cork, The National University of Ireland. Before coming to Texas Children’s in 2010, he trained and practiced at some of the world’s top pediatric institutions, including the famed Great Ormond Street Hospital in London and The Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. Today, he serves as co-director of Texas Children’s Heart Center®, ranked the No. 1 pediatric heart center in the nation for the past two years by U.S. News & World Report.

“This well-deserved honor is another shining example of Dr. Penny’s dedication to our patients and their families,” said President and CEO Mark Wallace. “He is a visionary leader in his field, and continues to guide our team as they pave the way in the treatment of children with congenital heart disease.”

Texas Children’s Heart Center provides the highest-quality cardiac care possible, combining cutting-edge technology with a compassionate, family-centered approach. Now located at its new home in Lester and Sue Smith Legacy Tower, the Heart Center occupies eight floors and features four cardiac catheterization labs including integrated MRI scanner, four cardiovascular operating rooms, three cardiovascular ICU floors with 48 private rooms, two cardiac acute care floors with 42 private patient rooms, and dedicated space for families.

Learn more about the Heart Center.