July 1, 2019

Since implementing Texas Children’s Patient Access Initiative, Texas Children’s continues to make great strides to ensure our patients and their families get in the door easier to access our high quality services.

One of the many impactful changes benefitting patient families has been their ability to easily and quickly schedule their appointments online as a result of new features the organization has implemented. To date, more than 10,000 appointments have been scheduled online via MyChart and DocASAP.

In May 2018, Texas Children’s launched direct scheduling that allows current patients to schedule return appointments online through MyChart. Since its implementation, over 7,909 visits have been scheduled online and many patients and their families describe the scheduling process as “easy and convenient.”

“I was surprised that Texas Children’s now offers this option,” wrote a Texas Children’s family. “It was very convenient and the process for scheduling appointments was very simple and streamlined.”

In addition to direct scheduling via MyChart, over 2,814 appointments have been made via DocASAP, Texas Children’s online scheduling partner, since November 2018. Offered in both English and Spanish, this online scheduling tool is available to new patients, current patients, and referred patients at Texas Children’s three hospital campuses including our specialty care locations in Houston and Austin, and Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women.

“I am excited about the progress we’ve made to better serve our patients and their families,” said Sarah Ringold, assistant director of Perioperative Business Operations at Texas Children’s and project manager for the online scheduling team for Patient Access. “It is amazing to be able to offer families the flexibility of scheduling online, and to continue to improve the online scheduling tool to make it more and more effective for our patients.”

Other patient access milestones

Texas Children’s implemented other enhancements to improve patient access across the system. Below is an update on where we are today:

  • MyChart activations: Texas Children’s continues to see an increase in the number of patients signing up for MyChart. In October 2017, the organization had approximately 61 percent of distinct patients sign up for MyChart. As a result of system wide efforts to raise patient awareness and engagement, we have now exceeded over 74 percent activation rate for MyChart throughout the system as of June 2019.
  • Electronic Waitlist: Since implementing this MyChart feature that automatically sends texts and email notifications when appointments become available sooner, 3,794 patients have accepted an appointment on average 39 days earlier than their prior appointment. The total patient volume includes Texas Children’s Pediatrics (TCP), all subspecialties, sleep studies and therapies. Due to its success, TCPs in Austin and College Station will go live with this convenient electronic tool by the end of the summer.
  • Referrals: The referrals team continues to work through enhancements to the referral process in an effort to improve patient access. In April and May 2019, Texas Children’s received over 6,000 referrals from external providers that were processed through the central transcription team – the highest number of referrals from external providers to date. In addition, TCP surgical referrals and medicine referrals referred to Texas Children’s specialties also reached their highest levels at 91 percent and 87 percent, respectively. Current initiatives are in process to increase scheduling conversion and appointment capture rates for various specialties.
About Texas Children’s Patient Access Initiative

Launched in August 2017, Texas Children’s Patient Access Initiative is an on-going, collaborative effort to improve patient access across the organization. Since then, Texas Children’s has made significant progress to ensure patients easily and conveniently get in the door so we can provide the care they need, when they need it.

Click here for a list of other tools and features we’ve implemented across the system to improve access, care coordination and patient experience at Texas Children’s.

Texas Children’s Health Plan is launching a campaign to educate consumers about the importance of having health insurance.

The Get Insured campaign urges families to “Have a better plan for your kids” and will run from now until September 1.

“Texas has the highest percentage of people without health insurance in the United States and a large percent of these are children,” said Cristina Garcia-Gamboa, Texas Children’s Health Plan Marketing Director. “Applying for CHIP and Medicaid is a lengthy and daunting process and we want consumers to know we are here to help.”

“The goal of Get Insured is to educate families eligible for CHIP or Medicaid of their options to manage care through our health plan and encourage parents to have a plan for their children. We are also tying our message back to the importance health coverage has on a child’s future,” Garcia-Gamboa added.

Through this campaign, The Health Plan is also touting the newly created application assistance team, which is available to help parents apply for CHIP or Medicaid. The goal is to make sure that children get quality health care and are protected through life’s unexpected moments.

The effort will run locally in the greater Houston service area across TV, radio, outdoor, digital, social media and grass roots efforts. The campaign is member-centric and addresses both the emotional and rational benefits of having a plan, complete with an easy phone number for potential members to call. (1-888-559-PLAN)

The two 30-second TV spots in both English and Spanish depicts children and expecting parents dreaming of their own/child’s future and how Texas Children’s Health Plan can help them achieve those goals.

Want to help? Here’s how you can show your support for Get Insured.

Refer a friend or family member to plan now. If you know someone who is uninsured, tell them to apply for Medicaid or CHIP. Remind them to plan now for the health of their family.

As members of the Texas Children’s family, we strive to provide exceptional service each and every day. And, as part of the Disney Team of Heroes (DToH) initiative, we have partnered with the Disney Institute – Disney’s professional development and external training arm – to develop the DToH Children’s Hospital Service Training. This training is intended to enhance our already strong culture of care and service by turning ordinary interactions into moments of comfort, compassion and inspiration for patients, families and each other.

This week, Disney Institute has begun delivering an on-site version of the training to a representative group of employees and leaders from inpatient, outpatient and support services across our system to refine and inform this exciting new program.

In order to effectively roll out this impactful training across our system in the future, we need your help!

We are looking for 25 dynamic and engaging employees (including leaders) to train our workforce on how to deliver exceptional service through our Texas Children’s values and Disney’s service principles.

We are thrilled to introduce the DToH Train the Trainer Program! This new program will offer employees the distinguished opportunity to directly equip the workforce with concepts, skills, behaviors and tools to further our goal of providing innovative, patient-centered engagement.

In order to apply to be a DToH Service Trainer, you must be prepared to fulfill the following time commitments:

  • Deliver a minimum of 12 trainings per year and additional dedicated time each month for preparations and logistics
  • Be available to attend the DToH Train the Trainer Program on Oct. 14 – 18, 2019

Ideal applicants should exhibit a passion for the culture, strong communication and interpersonal skills, and a commitment to treat everyone like a valued customer, among other desired behaviors.

Additionally, you must meet eligibility requirements, which are outlined in the online application, and you must complete the following:

  • A 300 – 500 word personal statement on why you want to be a DToH Service Trainer
  • A 90-second video on how you see “Live Compassionately” demonstrated at Texas Children’s

Click here to fill out the online application and submit your video and personal statement, which are due by Friday, July 12.

In order to assist you with your application, we are offering Virtual Information Sessions that will provide a detailed overview of the eligibility requirements, time commitment and selection process. You are not required to attend a session in order to apply.

Dates/times available:

  • Friday, June 28, Noon to 12:30 p.m.
  • Tuesday, July 2, 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.
  • Tuesday, July 2, 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Click here to sign up for a Virtual Information Session. Once you enter HealthStream, select the “TCH DToH Children’s Hospital Service Virtual Information Session” to enroll.

If you are selected to move forward in the process following the review of the applications, you will be called back to participate in live auditions in August.

We look forward to seeing the magic you will create!

On May 29 and 30 The Woodlands campus hosted Texas Children’s inaugural quality and safety course, Resilience Engineering in Healthcare (REHC). A small cohort of 36 learners from across the system, combined with 20 faculty and safety specialists were handpicked to be a part of this innovative training. Eight additional Texas Children’s executives served as observers who engaged, watched, and became more informed, during the presentations.

System Chief Quality Officer Dr. Eric Williams, partnered with Quality and Safety leadership to develop the training and bring awareness to the ongoing complexity of our work environment, importantly highlighting its impact on patient safety. According to a study by Johns Hopkins University, more than 250,000 people in the United States die every year due to medical errors, making it the third leading cause of death following heart disease and cancer. This current and long-standing dilemma in healthcare is what sparked Williams and his team to develop an approach that allows us to harness adaptability to build and design a safer patient environment.

Williams hypothesized that, “Teams that are adaptable and resilient are more likely to be successful at managing the unexpected, mitigating risk, and increasing the speed that we deliver better and safer health care.”

An organization’s performance is resilient if it can function as required under expected and unexpected conditions alike. Resilience engineering is about better designing that ability to cope. The Team of Teams model from the McChrystal Group, a global advisory services and leadership development firm was also shared as a method of how to overcome the obstacles of operating in a complex work environment.

“We need to transform our approach to patient safety into one that is not solely focused on preventing human error in hindsight, simply because complex systems like healthcare can be highly unpredictable,” Director of Quality Education & Simulation Kelly Wallin said. “Routinely, individuals and teams are constantly adapting to manage expected and unexpected events before they ever lead to patient harm. The goal for our organization to learn how teams can best become more resilient and adaptive. That is the transformational skill set we need to share across the organization.”

This course is the first of its kind that includes immersive coursework topics. A total of four in-person sessions include information delivered via didactics, simulation-based training, and also theater-based improvisation.

By the end of the training, the expectation is that participants will be able to describe the presence of organizational resilience in health care. This includes the ability to increase both personal skills and their ability to teach others resiliency skills such as – anticipation, monitoring, response and learning. They also will be able to implement and evaluate safety, and resilience interventions in their own respective units.

“This innovative training was a breath of fresh air,” Director of Perioperative Services Amanda Ward said. “It was inspiring to learn approaches that enables a team to see through a new lens and was an extremely positive experience for me. I came back looking for opportunities to use what I had learned in my own department.”

With data collected during the training combined with participant feedback, the team expects to refine and revise the course and continue to offer it as advanced training.

“Every two weeks we’re distributing missions for each one of these learners to report back from within their workplace,” Wallin said. “We want to know how have they either utilized or identified something they’ve learned in this course; something that works well in the real world that we need to capture and build into our organizational training strategies.”

In September part two of this quality and safety course will take place at The Woodlands campus. Williams and Texas Children’s executives are looking forward to seeing this training progress and become an annual course.

“The training was extremely informative and hands on. I look forward to our organization focusing more on building our resilience potential,” Assistant Vice President of The Woodlands Campus Ketrese White said. “The goal is that we can adjust and adapt our safety management procedures to incorporate the tactics taught in this course. This will only catapult Texas Children’s success and allow us to continue to provide high quality, reliable care.”

This coursework could not have been possible without the generous support of the Tressler family, whose kind donation was specifically directed to improve quality and safety.

Congratulations to Clinical Staff Development Specialist, Lauren Ivanhoe, MSN, RN-BC, CEN, who is the recipient of the this year’s third quarter, Best of the West award.

Ivanhoe is a well-respected healthcare education professional throughout the campus, system, and nationally. She freely lends her educational expertise and leads initiatives anchored in staff development and patient safety.

The Best of the West award recognizes an employee each quarter who has exceled at demonstrating Texas Children’s values – leading tirelessly, living compassionately, amplifying unity and embracing freedom.

“Lauren has gone above and beyond to ensure we are aware and capable of best practices,” her co-workers expressed. “She is one of those people who is always willing to help and support the team.”

Ivanhoe recently worked closely with the West Campus Radiology Team to simulate patient care in the mobile CT scanner. She has spent countless hours coordinating and developing training content that translated into safe practice. Additionally, Ivanhoe has worked extremely hard to develop and train staff in preparation for the Epic Upgrade, Beaker go-live, and Interoperability transition.

She also coordinates Cy-Fair Independent School District student schedules for on-site training, contributing to a pipeline of future health care professionals.

“It goes without saying that Lauren is more than deserving of this award and we are better as a campus and system because of her passion and dedication,” the radiology team collectively mentioned. “We cherish the wealth of knowledge she shares and absolutely admire her uplifting and encouraging attitude.”

June 25, 2019

The first six years of Patrick Prudhomme’s life were touch and go. Born with sickle cell disease, the young boy experienced frequent episodes of pain when his sickled red blood cells blocked the flow of blood and oxygen to his body. He also endured various other complications of the disease, some of which landed him in the intensive care unit and had his family extremely worried about whether he would survive.

“It started with a fever and escalated quickly after that,” said Patrick’s grandmother, Joyce Watson about her grandson’s last major flare up. “I thought we were going to lose him.”

Today, thanks to the treatment Patrick receives at Texas Children’s Sickle Cell Center, he is a healthy 14-year-old ninth grader. Patrick has not had any pain or major health complications since he started the medication, hydroxyurea, eight years ago.

“I love Texas Children’s,” Patrick said. “Before I came here, I didn’t know what was going to happen to me.”

Patrick’s story, as well as those of many other sickle cell disease patients, were celebrated on June 19 in honor of World Sickle Cell Day, a time sickle cell patients, families, physicians, researchers and others join forces to raise awareness about sickle cell disease, an inherited red blood cell disorder that affects about 100,000 Americans and many more worldwide.

Held in the Texas Children’s Sickle Cell Center on the 14th Floor of Wallace Tower, the celebration provided fun, educational activities for all. Patients enjoyed refreshments, a variety of arts and crafts, and a visit from Elsa, one of Texas Children’s therapy dogs who helps comfort patients during their stay at the hospital.

See photos from the event below.

Family members and friends gathered information from various community organizations such as Supporting Our Sicklers (S.O.S.), Sickle Cell Association of Texas Marc Thomas Foundation, Novartis, H-SCOUT and The Periwinkle Foundation. They also heard from Dr. Amber Yates, co-director of Texas Children’s Sickle Cell Center.

“The work that is currently being done to find more treatments and hopefully a cure for sickle cell is extremely exciting,” Yates said. “I would never have imagined there would be this much involvement around sickle cell disease right now, but there is and it’s great.”

Some of those advancements include a FDA medication to help treat the symptoms of the disease in children 5 years old and older, Yates said. Another medication was recently granted accelerated approval pathway by the FDA and should be available for patients in the next one to two years. Other medications that would help patients during flare ups also are being studied.

Yates said gene therapy is another treatment being researched. In this therapy, the patients’ stem cells are coded to make non-sickled hemoglobin. This therapy offers another potential curative therapy for this disease.

Because this therapy could be a cure for the disease, Director of Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers Dr. Susan Blaney said Texas Children’s is playing a large role in the research going on surrounding sickle cell disease and that our experts are dedicated to finding more effective treatments and ultimately a cure for the disease.

Texas Children’s has been at the forefront of the fight against sickle cell disease for decades, screening newborns for the disease since the 1950s. Since 2011, these efforts have been expanded globally to Africa, where many more people suffer from the disease and screening and treatment are limited.

Texas Children’s is now treating children with sickle cell disease in Sub-Saharan Africa as well as training local physicians to do the same. Serving more than 1,100 children each year, Texas Children’s Sickle Cell Center is one of the largest in Texas, offering the latest treatments including hydroxyurea, transfusions and stem cell transplantation.

“We understand that this disease is life changing and that it affects people of all ethnicities across the world,” Blaney said. “That’s why we are here today recognizing you and renewing our commitment to tackling this disease.”

To learn more about Texas Children’s Sickle Cell Center, which serves patients from across the globe, click here. To watch Yates dive into the ins and outs of sickle cell disease on TedEd, click here, and to read a blog by Yates about sickle cell disease and why we celebrate World Sickle Cell day, click here.

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