July 1, 2019

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.

While the Daisy Award recognizes nursing excellence in all clinical areas, Leslie Morris shares the many opportunities available for ambulatory nurses to be honored with this award for the great work they do in the outpatient setting. Read more

We’ve all heard the saying, “Hard work pays off.”

That old adage certainly rings true for nine Texas Children’s nurses who recently graduated last month with their Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), the highest level of clinical training for nursing practice.

“It was a pleasant surprise to find out that so many of us had applied and been accepted into this program,” said Texas Children’s Pediatrics Assistant Director Joy Harrison. “We were able to complete group projects and preceptorships together and we finished the program together. We encouraged and supported each other throughout this journey. We truly demonstrated the spirit of “no man left behind.”

On May 22, Harrison and eight other graduates received their DNP degrees from the University of Texas Health Science Center’s Cizik School of Nursing including: Mary Jo Andre, Chief Nursing Officer; Jackie Ward, Associate Chief Nursing Officer; Tarra Christopher, Director of Nursing, Emergency Center; Kimberly Clark, Patient Care Manager – Cancer Center; Sara Dean, Nurse Practitioner – Pavilion for Women; Shannon Holland, Director of Nursing – Critical Care; Vanessa Kastner, Nurse Practitioner – NICU and Jennifer Sanders, Assistant Vice President, Nursing.

Three years ago, their journey began when they enrolled in the DNP program, a clinical doctoral program that provides advanced education in several key areas that impact patient care and outcomes including evidence-based practice, quality improvement and systems leadership. Since Texas Children’s already provided a strong foundation in these areas, the program built on the great work our nurses do every day.

“The program challenged me to be a bigger system thinker,” said Critical Care Nursing Director Shannon Holland. “Besides focusing on my area of responsibility, the program challenged me to think about what impact I can make on our patient population across the system. The program also encouraged us to get involved with advocacy and legislation in our professional organizations and offered ways we can partner with our colleagues to give nursing, our patients and their families a bigger voice in health care.”

Like the DNP program, Texas Children’s Hospital invests heavily in our nurses through various professional advancement and education opportunities. Besides benefitting from the hospital’s tuition reimbursement program, our nurses were able to complete their DNP thanks to the support and encouragement from the organization, their leaders, families and friends, and from each other.

“It is a privilege to work in an organization that values people,” said Emergency Center Nursing Director Tarra Christopher. “Partnering together and enduring the challenges, assignments, along with balancing work, school and home, created a bond with our group that is incredibly special. We are family more than ever before. I couldn’t be more proud of them or more humbled and honored to stand beside them.”

As a Magnet-designated organization committed to nursing excellence, cultivating a highly educated team of nurses has always been a huge priority. Chief Nursing Officer Mary Jo Andre, who began her career at Texas Children’s as a staff nurse in the Emergency Center 34 years ago, says no matter where a nurse is in his or her career, it is never too late to return to school to expand one’s knowledge and skills.

“At Texas Children’s, it is important that we continue to invest in higher education for our nurses at all levels because evidence shows that advanced education leads to better patient outcomes,” Andre said. “We are the ones who will lead health care transformation in the future. With more nurses obtaining their DNPs and other certifications, we can enhance patient care, provide more evidence-based practice, and become like we’ve always said we wanted to be – the number one destination for nurses everywhere.”

While this academic journey towards obtaining a DNP degree was both challenging and rewarding, these new graduates have already inspired other nurses at Texas Children’s to enroll in the program, which speaks volumes about our organization’s culture for learning and the incredible support system here.

“I am so grateful that we have inspired other nurses at Texas Children’s to get their DNPs,” said Associate Chief Nursing Officer Jackie Ward. “I want them to know they have nine other nurses who embarked on this same journey, and all of us will be here to support each of our nurses every step of the way.”

Q&A: Nurses reflect on DNP journey

Click the names below to learn more about our nurses’ DNP journey, the lessons they learned along the way, and how the support from Texas Children’s made it possible for them to reach this milestone.

Mary Jo Andre
Jackie Ward
Joy Harrison
Tarra Christopher
Kimberly Clark
Sara Dean
Shannon Holland
Vanessa Kastner
Jennifer Sanders

June 24, 2019

Texas Children’s employees share a responsibility to protect our patients, their families and each other from vaccine-preventable diseases like rubeola (measles), pertussis (whooping cough) and varicella (chickenpox). With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reporting this year the highest number of confirmed individual measles cases since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000, our commitment to preventing the transmission of vaccine-preventable diseases is especially important.

In support of that effort and our mission to create healthier futures for children and women, Texas Children’s is introducing new immunization requirements for all employees and all new hires, regardless of their patient care duties. These requirements are detailed in the Appropriate Screening and Vaccination Protocol Policy (#305) and Procedure (#3357), and align with recommendations from the CDC and the Texas Department of State Health Services.

For an introduction to the new policy and helpful information about the safety, effectiveness and necessity of vaccines, please watch this video message from our Physician-in-Chief Dr. Mark W. Kline. To view the video message, click here.

Required Immunization Details

Under the new policy, all Texas Children’s employees must take one of the following actions prior to August 30, 2019:

  • Be immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases including measles, mumps and rubella; chickenpox; and tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis.
  • Provide written documentation of vaccinations, written documentation of disease history by physician, or laboratory evidence of immunity.
  • If an employee has a medical contraindication that prohibits him or her from getting vaccinated or a religious objection, they must complete the immunization exemption process, detailed within the Immunization Requirement Guide. Immunization exemption requests will be reviewed by Employee Health and may be subject to individual or committee review. Employees whose exemption requests are approved may be subject to reassignment to an alternative area if available, based on the level of risk they present to patients.

How will this affect employees who are non-immune?

Employees who are considered non-immune to measles, mumps and rubella, chickenpox and/or tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis received an e-mail from Employee Health on June 24 explaining the new immunization requirements and requesting compliance by August 30, 2019.

For more information on the new immunization requirement, where to receive vaccine(s) at no cost, how to submit immunity documentation, and information on the immunization exemption process, please review the Immunization Requirement Guide. If you have any questions, please call Employee Health at 832-824-2150, option 2.

As a global leader in pediatric and women’s health care, our Texas Children’s patients and families rely on us to take every possible action to prevent the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases. Thank you for helping to keep yourself and our community safe and protected by complying with these new immunization requirements.