January 13, 2020

With the current geopolitical conditions and the escalating situation between the US and Iran, we are asking you to heighten your security vigilance.

Practice extreme caution when clicking on links and opening attachments within external emails. This level of vigilance should be practiced while accessing your personal email accounts, as well.

Our IS teams are taking the necessary proactive steps to better position our ability to timely respond to cyber threats. Our number one priority is the safety of our patients, faculty, and staff, and we are therefore heightening the security measures we have in place to combat potential risks to the best of our ability.

Thank you for helping us safeguard Texas Children’s.

Two nurses at Texas Children’s were recently selected for prestigious opportunities that will provide them with platforms to advance advocacy efforts on behalf of patients and the nursing profession.

Angela Gooden, Director of Advanced Practice Providers, has been selected to serve as the official Texas Nurse Practitioners (TNP) Legislative Ambassador for Senator Borris Miles. This new program, launched by TNP in 2020, is a grassroots network consisting of 181 nurse practitioners who will serve as the official TNP liaison to their state representative or senator. In her role as a TNP Legislative Ambassador, Angela will be positioned to support TNP’s advocacy efforts by building relationships to advance the legislative agenda for nurse practitioners in the state of Texas.

Maya Peterson, Education Coordinator in the PICU, has been accepted into to The Archer Fellowship Program (http://www.archercenter.org/archer-fellowship-program.html) at The Archer Center in Washington, D.C. The program’s purpose is to engage young professionals in public service and policy. The fellowship includes an internship and classes focused on policy development. Maya will be in the health policy track and her interests include social determinants of health and their impact on child health outcomes. She will be an intern with a national organization that is related to her policy interests.

“We are so excited for Angela and Maya as they embark on these incredible opportunities,” said Chief Nursing Officer Mary Jo Andre. “At Texas Children’s, we recognize the positive impact that these opportunities have on our profession and the care we deliver to our patients and their families.”

January 6, 2020

Texas Children’s patient John Weekley has a passion for firefighters, police officers and all those who put on a uniform to protect us.

During one of his recent trips from his hometown in Alaska to Texas Children’s Neuroscience Center where he receives care, John got the chance to meet one of his heroes in person

Molly Weber Berg, the house manager for the Ronald McDonald House Houston where John and his family stay when they are in Houston, reached out to Texas Children’s security team to ask for a Protection Officer patch for John to commemorate his time here in the city. In return, Sergeant Derek Ausseresses went above and beyond.

Instead of just passing along the patch to Berg, Ausseresses invited John to a ceremony at Texas Children’s Hospital where he made him an honorary Texas Children’s Security Officer and provided him with a security patch to add to his growing collection.

John, his family and Berg were thrilled, and Ausseresses was happy to have the opportunity to make a positive impression on one of our patients.

Texas Children’s has achieved HIMSS Stage 7 designation for Inpatient and Ambulatory across the system, which demonstrates the organization’s successful implementation of health care information technology to address quality initiatives and improve the delivery of patient care, efficiency and safety. In 2019, only 7 percent of hospitals in the U.S. achieved Stage 7 designation.

“Our hospital is among a small, elite group of health care organizations in the nation that have been awarded Stage 7 designation for inpatient and outpatient facilities,” said Myra Davis, senior vice president of Information Services. “This collaborative milestone is a culmination of nearly a decade of implemented technological solutions and data gathering to advance patient outcomes and further differentiate Texas Children’s from other hospitals that provide care for children and women.”

Reviewers from HIMSS Analytics visited Texas Children’s Medical Center Campus on December 16 and 17 to validate the organization’s achievement of Stage 7 in our inpatient and outpatient facilities, including Texas Children’s Pediatrics on Kirby Drive. Staff answered questions about the hospital’s use of technology to support patient care including processes for clinical information documentation, tools for quality metrics and analytics, and the handling of paper documents.

“It was wonderful to hear reviewers acknowledge our Quality and IS collaboration as being ‘best in class’, among other notable mentions,” said Texas Children’s Chief Medical Information Officer Dr. Carla Giannoni. This has been a goal that we, as an organization, have been actively focused on achieving.

HIMSS reviewers noted several key IS achievements that contributed to our Stage 7 designation:

  • Optimizing clinical workflows – This has improved the quality of care across the system whether in the emergency center or at a primary care practice. Epic’s electronic mobile application suite allows providers to e-prescribe medications and improves the safe and secure transmission for patient health information among providers.
  • System integrations – Integration of the PACS link in Epic for imaging review and lab results has provided our providers with a holistic view to determine a more personalized plan of care. A system integration that was implemented is MyDining, a new room service feature that offers healthier menu options for patients during their hospital stay.
  • Electronic health record (EHR) enhancements – Examples of enhancing the EHR include decision support in the form of Best Practice Alerts that automatically notify staff of certain conditions such as the risk of Sepsis or the need for an influenza immunization.

“The maturity of health information technology and data analysis are key to advancing outcomes and experience for our patients and providers,” said Julie McGuire, director of Enterprise Systems for Information Services. “We are so grateful to have completed this last step in our Stage 7 journey. We were able to achieve this designation through the collaborative support from our dedicated partners.”

The tireless leadership of the planning team members from several departments that contributed to Texas Children’s obtaining Stage 7 designation included Quality, Radiology, Pharmacy, Texas Children’s Pediatrics/Texas Children’s Urgent Care, Health Information Management, Nursing Clinical Informatics, Chief Medical Information Officer and Associate Medical Information Officers, Mission Control, subspecialty services (Pediatrics, Surgery and Women’s Services), Pathology, Emergency Management and all employees and staff who hosted the site visits in their respective areas.

“Our goal is to optimize the digital tools that surround the providers so we can radically improve our performance and deliver better care,” said Texas Children’s Chief Quality Officer Dr. Eric Williams. “We are proud of the Stage 7 designation, but we are more proud of how our digital transformation has improved patient care.”

Physicians from across the globe traveled to Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women last week to attend Texas Children’s first Fetal Center Fetoscopic Neural Tube Defect Simulation Course. Teams from Australia, England, Belgium, Turkey, Germany, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, and the USA were here to learn how to perform a specific fetal surgery procedure developed at Texas Children’s.

The two-day program included lectures and hands-on practice sessions with various experts in the field, including Texas Children’s Obstetrician and Gynecologist-in-Chief Dr. Michael Belfort and Pediatric Neurosurgeon Dr. William Whitehead. Whitehead and Belfort pioneered two-port fetoscopic neural tube repair surgery in 2014 when they performed the minimally-invasive procedure in–utero on 23-week-old Grayson Canezero.

Since then, Texas Children’s has become one of the only places in the world where people can go to correct neural tube defects, also known as spina bifida defects, fetoscopically. Advances in fetal surgery and the landmark clinical trial, known as the Management of Myelomeningocele Study (MOMS Trial), have proven that a fetal surgical repair leads to decreased rates of hydrocephalus and improved leg function compared to a postnatal repair.

Through their research and outcomes data, Belfort and his team have shown that performing the surgery fetoscopically yields the same outcome for the baby as the open repair, while being significantly less invasive for the mother. Texas Children’s continues to offer open fetal surgery for spina bifida, the standard of care since 2012, for patients who do not qualify for or opt not to undergo a fetoscopic repair.

Conference attendees learned how to select patients for the surgery, counsel and prepare them for the surgery, perform the surgery, manage patients after the surgery and follow-up after the child is delivered. The conference included several hands-on simulations of the procedure and other related surgeries.

“This is a great way to educate and equip surgeons all over the world with the knowledge and ability to perform a procedure that can make a huge difference in the lives of mothers and their unborn babies,” Belfort said. “I am very pleased we were able to provide this opportunity and I am especially grateful to our wonderful Texas Children’s team members who organized and managed the course and to Karl Storz who provided the equipment that made this possible.”

Aurora Ayala, an administrative supervisor for Radiology, recently received the Edward B. Singleton Award for Administration. This prestigious award acknowledges individuals within Radiology whose outstanding leadership and/or contribution to the mission of the department has a significant and positive impact on advancing patient care, education, research or Texas Children’s core values.

Ayala began working with the late Dr. Singleton at St. Luke’s in 1984, who this award is named after. In 1991 she was hired as the supervisor of the Business Office at Texas Children’s when the physician and administrative offices were still in the same suite. When Singleton was chief, he would start his day by asking for two individuals, with one of them being Ayala. Her responsibilities included overseeing the scheduling, transcription and front desk teams. Since then, Ayala has helped the department grow into the success that it is today.

Ayala inspires others with her positive attitude and willingness to help everyone. She organizes department-wide events that boost employee morale and coordinates the day to day activities of the leaders she works with. She handles conflicts with patience and professionalism and ensures tasks are completed at the highest standard.

The Edward B. Singleton award was named in memory of Dr. Singleton, an early pioneer in radiology and long-time physician at Texas Children’s.

Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus is proud to again be recognized as a Leapfrog 2019 Top Children’s Hospital. This elite distinction demonstrates the hospital’s outstanding accomplishments in safety, patient care and commitment to serving the community. This is the sixth time Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus earned this prestigious award.

Recognized as one of 10 Top Children’s Hospitals, Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus received the award alongside 100 other nationwide hospitals in four categories, including general, rural, teaching and children’s hospitals.

“To again be recognized as a Leapfrog Top Children’s Hospital is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our clinical and administrative teams, delivering the highest standards of quality and care for our patients,” Ivett Shah, senior vice president at Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus, said. “This is one of the most competitive and exclusive honors a hospital can achieve and I am so proud the Leapfrog Group recognized our work; we will continue to provide exemplary care to our community.”

Being designated as a Leapfrog Top Hospital is widely acknowledged as one of the most competitive honors American hospitals can receive. Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus is consistently recognized for exceeding the toughest standards for patient safety and quality.

The Leapfrog Group is an independent hospital watchdog organization and provides the only national, public comparison of hospitals across safety, quality and efficiency dimensions. Performance across many areas of hospital care is considered in establishing the qualifications for the award, including infection rates and the hospital’s capacity to prevent medication errors.

To qualify for the Top Hospitals distinction, hospitals must submit a Leapfrog Hospital Survey and achieve the highest performance in its category. To see the full list of institutions honored as 2019 Top Hospitals, visit www.leapfroggroup.org/tophospitals.