November 22, 2016

“Our son was supposed to be born on Christmas Day but he decided Election Day was more fun,” said Whitney Kubik whose son was born six weeks early at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. “I was honored that Kemp was chosen to be the first one to walk through the door. I am very excited because he gets to go home soon.”

In recognition of World Prematurity Day on November 17, Texas Children’s Newborn Center and the Pavilion for Women leadership unveiled a symbolic green doorway that represents the end of a family’s NICU journey and the beginning of a new chapter when they get to bring their baby home for the first time.

“Whether you’re in the NICU for two months or two years, it can be tough on families,” said Desiree Bradley, a NICU mom and member of Texas Children’s Newborn Family Advisory Committee. “We thought about different concepts and came up with the idea of a discharge door to mark this momentous milestone.”

Bradley and her Newborn Family Advisory Committee members Shannon Essex and Ane Alfred presented their design sketch to Texas Children’s Facilities Operations team who recreated what was in the hearts and minds of these mothers and children.

On World Prematurity Day, Texas Children’s was one of three hospitals nationwide that partnered with the March of Dimes to promote its national “Give Them Tomorrow” initiative to raise local, national and global awareness of prematurity, the number one cause of death for babies in the U.S. and around the world.

More than 380,000 cards and letters – one for each premature birth in the U.S. annually – were created by families across the country. With the help of representatives from the University of Houston men’s basketball team, stacks of inspirational cards were delivered to Texas Children’s NICU families in honor of this significant day.

“I’m very glad that we had patient families here, community representatives, our physicians and nursing leadership who came out to show their support,” said Chief of Neonatology Dr. Gautham Suresh. “Because it is only with partnerships amongst all the stakeholders that we can make a dent in the rate of prematurity and improve the outcomes of premature babies and their families.”

During this special occasion, Texas Children’s was named the top corporate sponsor of the 2017 March for Babies in Houston – the No.1 March for Babies in the country.

Cris Daskevich, senior vice president of the Pavilion for Women, will serve as the chair of the walk which rallies support from across the Houston community to combat prematurity. Michelle Riley-Brown, executive vice president and president of Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands, will be chairing the Montgomery County March for Babies event in May and Information Services Senior Vice President Myra Davis, Assistant Vice President of Women’s Services Ivett Shah and NICU Vice President Judy Swanson will co-lead the Texas Children’s system-wide campaign.

“We are proud to partner with the March of Dimes in these efforts and grateful for their many decades of support to Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine,” Daskevich said. “Over the last 10 years, the March of Dimes has provided more than $16 million in grants more than all other Houston area institutions combined.”

112316drmarybrandt175Pediatric Surgeon Dr. Mary Brandt has been reappointed to the Board of Governors of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) as the Governor-at-Large representing ACS fellows in the ACS South Texas Chapter. This is the second three-year term for Brandt.

In her position as a Governor-at-Large, she will facilitate communications between ACS Fellows and members of the Board of Governors. Brandt’s duties include attending local meetings, participating in the Surgical Training Workgroup and attending national leadership meetings.

Brandt is director of the Adolescent Bariatric Surgery Program and director of the Anorectal Malformation Clinic at Texas Children’s Hospital. She is also a professor of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine.

November 15, 2016

111616newpfwwebsite350In case you haven’t already noticed, the websites for Texas Children’s Hospital and Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women have a new look and feel.

Sporting bright colors, vibrant photographs and iconography, the websites have been redesigned to better reflect Texas Children’s branding and marketing materials. The websites also have been revamped to incorporate best practices and user study feedback.

New features of the websites include:

  • A new content management system that allows for quicker, more timely updates
  • Incorporated branding (pictures, colors, icons) to match Texas Children’s current marketing material
  • Reorganized navigation based on usage data/analytics so that visitors can easily find the most searched-after content
  • Revamped website search that provides more accurate results
  • Improved responsiveness on mobile/tablet devices
  • New online health libraries provides valuable information to current/prospective patients as well as assists with search results through Google, Bing and other search engines.

Both websites have seen tremendous traffic with the Texas Children’s Hospital website garnering almost 6 million page views this year from 1.3 million different users and the Pavilion for Women website receiving 1.2 million views from 411,000 users. In addition, statistics have shown improvement in the amount of page views, average load time and bounce rate.

Work on Texas Children’s websites will continue with a new face and feel for Texas Children’s Pediatrics and Texas Children’s Urgent Care coming soon. A new safety and outcomes page also will be unveiled, offering our patients and their families the most complete and accurate information possible about how we are doing as a health care system.

Click here to see the new look of the Texas Children’s Hospital website and here to get a feel for the new website for the Pavilion for Women.

The web team would like to hear your feedback and answer any questions you might have about our new websites. Please direct your comments to tmmorri1@texaschildrens.org.

Growing up, it took awhile for Michelle Roy to warm up to other children in her neighborhood and school classrooms. A bilateral cleft lip and palate caused her to be shy, introverted and at times feel a little isolated.

“I didn’t have anyone to share my experiences and feelings with,” she said. “I didn’t have access to a network of kids in similar situations.”

Fortunately, that’s not the case for the many children Roy now works with as a physician assistant to pediatric plastic surgeon Dr. Laura Monson. Monson helped start Camp Keep Smiling in 2014, a camp for children with cleft lip and palate.

The camp recently wrapped up with a record-setting number of campers and incredible experiences for the patients and staff members alike. Camp Keep Smiling provides a safe, fun environment for patients between the ages of 10 and 16 to engage in meaningful social interaction and gain self-confidence. The camp, hosted by nonprofit Camp for All, offers activities like canoeing, fishing, archery, ropes courses, basketball and arts and crafts. Admission is free of charge for patients as it is supported directly by donations.

This year, 61 campers attended Camp Keep Smiling versus the 30 who attended in 2014. Monson leads the camp with other team members from the plastic surgery division. Physicians, nurses, OR staff and child life specialists serve as counselors who notice tremendous strides in the campers towards the end of the session. Oftentimes, campers have never met another child with cleft lip and palate and this gives them the opportunity to form friendships with those who are just like them.

“Children with cleft lip and palate often will have four or more surgeries throughout their lifetime to address not only appearance issues but speech and dental issues as well,” Monson said, adding that cleft lip and palate affects one out of every 700 births. “Camp Keep Smiling was created to help these children better understand their condition, meet people who are going through the same thing and help them deal with some of the difficult social interactions they might have growing up.”

Christy Hernandez, a registered nurse with Texas Children’s Outcomes and Impact Service, has been helping organize the camp since its inception and said it is amazing to watch the campers open up to one another over the weekend while participating in super fun activities.

“It’s life changing for many of them,” she said. “It’s a time when they can forget about their medical condition and just be kids.”

Roy participated in the camp for the first time this year as its counselor coordinator and saw firsthand what a great opportunity it is for children with cleft lips and palates to gain confidence in themselves, and meet and build relationships with people who look and often feel the same way they do.

“Camp Keep Smiling is a very valuable experience for these children to have,” she said. “I feel blessed to be a part of it and to let them know there’s a bright future ahead of them.”

Click here to watch ABC-13’s story about Camp Keep Smiling.

111616epilepsyinside640Imagine being a parent of a child who has uncontrollable seizures. After numerous doctor visits and four failed medication attempts, the cause of your child’s seizures remains a mystery. That was the grim reality Mallory Hansen and her husband, Craig, faced after their son’s epilepsy diagnosis.

“When Noah was 10 weeks old, we noticed he was not acting normally,” Hansen said. “We learned he was experiencing infantile spasms. He would have anywhere from 10 to 30 seizures a day, and with each occurrence, he experienced 30 to 100 epileptic twitches.”

Despite being diagnosed with epilepsy at four months old, Noah underwent numerous tests including MRIs, blood work, EEGs, seeing a neurologist and a genetic doctor to pinpoint the cause of his seizures, but still no answers. When their son was two years old, the Hansens relocated to Houston and Noah’s medical files were transferred to Texas Children’s Hospital. It was there that the family finally got the answers to their son’s perplexing medical condition.

“The neurology team at Texas Children’s performed more tests including nuclear medicine, MRIs and EEGs in their Epilepsy Monitoring Unit which meant Noah had to stay in the hospital for multiple days,” Hansen said. “It was after an MRI that the neurologist discovered the reason behind Noah’s seizures and epilepsy.”

At the age of two, Noah finally had a diagnosis: His right occipital lobe had brain tissue that did not develop correctly as an embryo which was causing his seizures.

Since previous medications didn’t stop Noah’s seizures, the only option remaining was brain surgery. During the first phase of surgery, an 8×6 grid was placed on the top of his brain like a mini EEG and electrodes were inserted to show the depth of Noah’s seizures. After two days of recording his seizures, Texas Children’s neurosurgeons had enough information to perform the resection surgery where they removed the bad tissue from Noah’s right occipital lobe.

Following two 12-hours operations, Noah has made a miraculous recovery with promising outcomes.

“Since his surgery in July 2014, Noah has not had a single seizure,” Hansen said. “Since May 2016, he’s been off all three of his seizure medications. Thanks to Texas Children’s, the entire epilepsy team, emergency unit, neurosurgeons, critical care team and all the staff we encountered, we are forever grateful.”

Like the Hansens, patients families from across the country come to Texas Children’s because of our neuroscience team’s multidisciplinary care and expertise in caring for the most difficult to treat neurological disorders.

Ranked No. 2 nationally in neurology and neurosurgery by U.S. News & World Report, Texas Children’s neurosurgery program is among the largest and most experienced pediatric neurosurgery units in the U.S., performing more than 950 surgeries annually for a broad range of pediatric neurosurgical disorders.

For more information about Texas Children’s Neuroscience Center, click here.

On November 2, Texas Children’s Cancer Center hosted the inaugural Pediatric Cancer Disparities Symposium, presented by Northwestern Mutual Foundation and Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. Experts from around the world attended in an effort to increase awareness of the disparities that exist for pediatric cancers, to stimulate the development of new research and to begin establishing a research strategy for addressing key disparities. The event included numerous panel discussions focusing on ways to improve outcomes for all children with cancer, regardless of their background.

111616playgarden640The playground adjacent to the Abercrombie Building will be closed for several months as it undergoes major renovations to create a new outdoor environment for our patients, families and staff.

Scheduled to be completed in spring 2017, this area will be entirely renovated to create a new “play garden” that includes multiple seating areas with shade structures, play equipment and new furnishings. The first three to four weeks will be the most disruptive with removal of existing structures and concrete. Facilities Project Management will need your team’s assistance to inform patients, families and staff about the noise that they will hear during this time.

The schedule below identifies the key activities that will occur during the next several weeks.

November 14 to Monday, December 12: Bellows will take over the construction site and block the “thru lane” on the Concourse drive.

  • Demo will include removal of concrete which may result in loud noise in this area for approximately three to four weeks. Complimentary ear plugs will be available for Valet staff and patients / visitors who will be in the area. This work will occur during normal business hours.
  • Lane closure has been coordinated with Valet and additional Valet staff will be in place to ensure vehicles are removed quickly from the concourse.
  • Signs have already been installed to direct pedestrian traffic.

December 12 plus four months: Bellows will begin to build back the area. Lane closures will be coordinated on an as-needed basis to allow for key deliveries and concrete pours.

The entire renovation project could take up to four months to complete.

For questions or concerns about this project, please contact Rene Hoelker at Ext. 4-2370.