May 3, 2017

As a health care system, Texas Children’s believes that a critical component to offering outstanding clinical care is measuring the results of the care we deliver and doing our best to provide our patients and families with the safest environment possible.

“By tracking what we do, we learn about what happens to our patients, and we also learn about our performance as a health care delivery organization,” said Chief Safety Officer Dr. Joan Shook. “We know we can always do better and must continue to strive toward excellence in health care delivery.”

With that in mind, Texas Children’s has created a dedicated safety and outcomes website that parents can access directly from the Texas Children’s main landing page. The information on this page is organized into the following nationally recognized categories of quality measures:

  • Safe: Avoiding harm to patients from the care that is intended to help them.
  • Effective: Providing services based on scientific knowledge. This category also measures the outcomes of the care we provide.
  • Patient-centered: Providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.
  • Timely: Reducing wait times and harmful delays for both those who receive and those who give care.
  • Efficient: Avoiding waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas and energy.

When possible, the website shows how Texas Children’s compares to other children’s hospitals in the United States in these categories. Where no good comparisons are available, the website illustrates how Texas Children’s compares to our own performance in the past, and how we measure up to our own goals.

Some of the topics and data reported include: hand-hygiene compliance, catheter associated blood stream infections, surgical site infections, death and complications within 30 days of surgery, patient experience, third next available appointment, patients leaving emergency care and transfer denials. Additional measures will be added over time.

For each measure, information is provided that lays out what parents can do to help Texas Children’s deliver the highest quality pediatric care. The website also includes links to our health system’s evidence-based guidelines. A distinctive feature of the website is an email address for readers who want to provide input on what additional information they would like to know and ways we can improve our website.

“We invite you to check out how we are doing and to share our outcomes with patients and their families,” Shook said. “We believe our patients and families deserve the most complete and accurate information possible about how we are doing as a health care system.”

Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women also has launched a safety and outcomes website. Click here for more information.

For the second year in a row we are bring spring directly to our patients through our May Flowers fundraising drive.

Here’s the plan: We’re going to hang spring flowers, personalized by our donors, on the doors of our patients’ rooms to brighten their days. Donors that give to Texas Children’s as part of the campaign can personalize one of those flowers with their name and location.

It’s a great way for our community to show our patients they are thinking of them and at the same time help Texas Children’s continue to provide the very best care.

Here are two things that you can do to help today:

Let your friends and family know they can join you and help bring some spring fun to our patients.

  • Send a flower by making a donation.

Send a flower to one of our patients, and we’ll decorate their door with a personalized flower from you. texaschildrens.org/flowers.

These flowers won’t just help bring some spring cheer inside our walls. More important, they will help us ensure that children in need of advanced critical, surgical and emergency care can always find it here when they need it most.

We are well on our way to being able to decorate all our patients’ doors with colorful spring flowers that show them just how much people care. Soon our hallways will be in full bloom.

The last day of the campaign is Friday, May 12. Flowers will be hung in late May and stay up through the spring season.

To personalize one with your name, give today: texaschildrens.org/flowers.

Texas Children’s Hospital is proud to announce the opening of its eighth Texas Children’s Urgent Care clinic. Located at 2200 Yale Street, Houston, TX, 77008, 713-861-6104, Texas Children’s Urgent Care The Heights offers high-quality, efficient and affordable pediatric care at a convenient location.

Texas Children’s Urgent Care The Heights is open Monday through Friday, 4:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday, noon to 8 p.m. The clinic is staffed by board certified pediatricians who have privileges at Texas Children’s Hospital. Pediatricians diagnose and treat a wide variety of ailments, illnesses and conditions, including: asthma, strep throat, fever, minor burns, influenza, ear infections, allergic reactions and more. Procedures provided include: antibiotic injections, breathing treatments, fracture care and splinting, IV (intravenous) fluids, lab services, laceration repair and X-rays onsite.

Oftentimes, families turn to an emergency center after hours, on weekends or perhaps even during the day, when a significant event occurs with their child. Though the emergency center is the right place for some incidents or ailments, the majority of the time minor illnesses can and should be treated at a pediatric urgent care facility.

Texas Children’s Urgent Care accepts major insurance plans and has self-pay rates, which are less than emergency center charges, and there are no hospital fees. A complete list of insurance plans is available on the website. Texas Children’s Urgent Care specializes in after-hours care, but does not replace the need for children to have a general pediatrician. Routine physical exams and vaccinations are services that should be obtained from a general pediatrician, and these services are not available at Texas Children’s Urgent Care.

Texas Children’s Urgent Care has seven additional convenient locations:

  • Cinco Ranch, 9727 Spring Green Blvd., Suite 900 Katy, TX 77494, 281-789-6300
  • Memorial, 12850 Memorial Drive, Suite 210 Houston, TX 77024, 832-827-4000
  • The Woodlands, 4775 W. Panther Creek Drive, Suite C300 The Woodlands, TX 77381, 281-417-0870
  • Main Campus, 6621 Fannin, Suite 2240 Houston, TX 77030, 832-824-2000
  • Pearland, 2701 Pearland Parkway, Suite 190, Pearland, TX 77581, 281-485-6400
  • The Vintage, 10420 Louetta Road, Suite 104, Houston, TX 77070, 281-251-0269
  • Fairfield, 28070 Highway 290, Suite 100, Cypress, TX 77433, 281-758-4770

On April 23, more than 30,000 people from across the Greater Houston community laced up to participate in the 2017 March for Babies walk at the University of Houston, including more than 850 Texas Children’s employees, patients and their families who all share the same passion for improving the health of babies.

This year, Texas Children’s contributed $125,000 as the Premier sponsor of the 4.5-mile walk and our employees have personally raised more than $93,000 to date to support the March of Dimes. Baylor College of Medicine, Greater Houston Anesthesiology and Morrison partnered with Texas Children’s and sponsored snacks and dessert, water, t-shirts, a tent and disc jockey.

Several months prior to the March for Babies walk, departments and units from across the organization formed their own teams to help raise money and rally support around this worthy cause. Creative teams across the organization hosted barbecues, designed and sold t-shirts, held bake sales, arranged bike tours and even paid to give their leaders a pie in the face to raise money and awareness. Each of the 60 teams raised an average of $1,900 all of which helped Texas Children’s exceed this year’s fundraising goal of $120,000.

“It was great to see everyone come together and support one another to give every baby a fighting chance,” said Cris Daskevich, senior vice president at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. “Since 1984, Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine have received more than $16 million from the March of Dimes to support research to prevent birth defects and prematurity. Our long-term partnership has helped significantly improve outcomes and quality of life for some of our most fragile babies – giving hope to patients and families when there once was none.”

Texas Children’s employee Leanne O’Brien and her husband, Kiran, were Houston’s 2017 Ambassador Family for the March of Dimes. Their twins, Remy and Ronan, were cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit at Texas Children’s for four and a half months.

On April 23, 25 walkers representing Texas Children’s Family Fertility Center participated in the Walk of Hope in Sugar Land Town Square, a one-mile walk to increase community awareness about infertility.

This year, Texas Children’s came in second of the top 10 teams in Houston for fundraising. The Family Fertility Center team raised $1,700 from bake and T-shirt sales.

The name “Walk of Hope” embodies the emotion that most people living with infertility feel. The Walk of Hope is an event that represents the infertility journey – a series of small steps, each one filled with hope and a reminder that no one should walk on this journey alone.

The Walk of Hope was held in several locations across the country. Funds raised from the event will support RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association created to improve the lives of women and men with infertility issues.

The funds from the Walk of Hope will support RESOLVE programming including support groups, the most up-to-date online information, public awareness initiatives and advocacy efforts to ensure family building options are available to all.

April 27, 2017

Texas Children’s is dedicated to providing wellness programs to help you achieve optimal health and well-being. Therefore, we are pleased to now offer employees who are tobacco users the opportunity to participate in our new Tobacco Treatment Program sponsored by the Employee Medical Clinic in partnership with MD Anderson Cancer Center.

How does the Tobacco Treatment Program work?

This program offers behavioral counseling and tobacco-cessation medications at no cost to Texas Children’s employees who meet the following criteria:

  • Current tobacco user (e.g. cigarettes, smokeless tobacco) or
  • Recently quit within the past 12 months, and
  • Currently enrolled in one of the Texas Children’s medical insurance plans.
What can you expect from the program?

Program participants will attend a two-hour consultation at MD Anderson Cancer Center to discuss steps to quit smoking as well as nicotine replacement options. Your program enrollment costs and nicotine replacement prescriptions are covered by your Texas Children’s medical insurance plan. Participants will also receive up to eight, in-person or phone sessions with a tobacco-cessation counselor over a 12-week period as well as individual follow-up sessions every three months for one year.

Don’t wait, quit today! To learn more about this program, please contact Texas Children’s Health Coach Alexandra Alonso at 832-824-3068.

Do you know the benefits of quitting tobacco?

Decreased heart risks

Smoking is the leading cause of heart attacks and heart disease. Quitting can lower your blood pressure and heart rate almost immediately. Your risk of a heart attack declines within 24 hours.

Lower cholesterol

Quitting smoking will lower the levels of cholesterol and fats circulating in your blood, which will help to slow the buildup of new fatty deposits in your arteries.

Stop lung damage

It is important to quit smoking before you do permanent damage to your lungs. Within two weeks of quitting, you may notice it’s easier to walk up a flight of stairs and not be out of breath.

To learn more about the benefits of quitting tobacco, click here.

April 26, 2017

On April 19, Texas Children’s Green Team hosted the hospital’s annual Earth Day celebration which expanded to three locations this year for employees and staff to join in on the fun.

Besides The Auxiliary Bridge event at Texas Children’s Medical Center Campus, Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus and Texas Children’s Health Plan hosted exciting Earth Day events.

Vendors provided eco-friendly, cost-saving tips including how to become more energy efficient, tips on eating green, and ways to reduce waste and recycle more to promote a cleaner, healthier planet. Earl the Bear greeted guests at West Campus and Captain Clean Up entertained the crowd at Main Campus.

Informative handouts and goodies were distributed to attendees including Earth Day stickers, seeded confetti packets and customized Green Team water bottles made of 100 percent recyclable materials. At Main and West campuses, employees safely disposed of their expired and unused medications as part of Pharmacy’s Medication Disposal and Medication Take Back Program.

The Earth Day celebration also included two tree plantings at West Campus and Texas Children’s The Woodlands Hospital thanks to the generous donations from Trees for Houston.

As the Green Team prepares for next year’s Earth Day celebrations, feel free to drop them a line. If you have any green ideas, suggestions for next year or want to join the team, email teamgreen@texaschildrens.org.