February 11, 2014

What’s better than having passion for the mission and knowing your spouse is in the same boat? It’s like a real life reality show for many couples at Texas Children’s who get to see their loved ones not just after hours but sometimes even run into them serendipitously around the organization.

Dr. George Mallory and his wife Debbie, Dr. Larry Hollier and his wife Dr. Lisa Hollier along with Tony Sanders and his wife Regina Barnett-Sanders tell us what it’s like to see your spouse around the halls or even ride to work together. Plus an update from last year’s engaged couples, newlyweds Tarra Kerr and Dan Christopher along with Sarah and Aaron Solis talk about their weddings and the moments they shared with their coworkers that made their special days memorable.

If you and your loved one work together and want to make sure you’re featured next year, send an email to connect news.

21214drmilewicz640Dr. Allen L. Milewicz has been appointed chief of community surgery at West Campus. Milewicz, whose appointment was effective January 6, will continue his role as assistant professor of surgery and pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM).

As a leader in the field of pediatric surgery for more than 20 years, Milewicz has distinguished himself in his academic, clinical and research roles. His primary research focus is on cardiac surgery, liver transplantation, and hepatobiliary disorders. Additionally, Milewicz has advanced training and extensive experience in skeletal malformations of the chest and in extracorporeal membrane oxygenation.

In his new role, Milewicz will be responsible for organizing Texas Children’s surgery within the community, focusing on Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus and Texas Children’s Health Centers.

“Dr. Milewicz’s leadership will be vital to the expansion of the Department of Surgery and to meeting our mission of providing surgical care to children in need,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser Jr., surgeon-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital and professor of surgery and pediatrics at BCM. “He will be a tremendous asset to our renowned surgical team.”

Board-certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, Milewicz received his undergraduate degree from City College of New York and earned his medical degree from New York University School of Medicine and completed his general surgery residency program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

“Throughout my tenure at Texas Children’s, I’ve always been honored to be part of a world renowned surgical team. I’m excited to have the opportunity to take on this new leadership role,” said Milewicz. “My focus is to grow Texas Children’s community enterprise while ensuring that each patient receives the experience, expertise, and clinical outcomes for which Texas Children’s is known.”

Jillian Young shares what it meant to have her child be on the receiving end of donor milk and why she hopes you will consider donating:

When you find yourself and your baby in the NICU like I did, it can be a very scary time. As a parent, you often feel helpless and aren’t really able to do much to help your child except love on him and feed him. When my body did not cooperate with producing enough milk to feed Henry every three hours, I felt so guilty. The one thing I was supposed to be able to do, I could not. Fortunately Henry was in the NICU at Texas Children’s and became a recipient of donor milk from the Texas Children’s Milk Bank. This service was offered to us once our nurse became aware that I was not able to produce enough milk to feed him every 3 hours. I jumped at the chance to have a donor supplement what I was unable to provide. With him being so tiny and every feeding really counting, I felt a great sense of relief once he was receiving donor milk for most of his feedings. I was so thankful to the lady for taking time so that Henry was able to receive such great nutrients. We live in a society right now that promotes breast milk as being the best source for babies. Given Henry’s situation I wanted to take every measure possible to make sure he got all the nutrients he needed to gain weight and strength.

After months of pumping every 3 hours since Henry would only take milk from bottles, I had a new respect for milk donors. Not only are they most likely feeding their own children, a grueling task in itself, but they are taking the time and effort to pump extra milk for complete strangers! I think it is such a selfless act that impacts parents like me who feel helpless when they can’t feed their child.

With baby #2 on the way, I am praying that breastfeeding goes smoothly and she will not end up in the NICU like her big brother. However, if that is the case, I am happy to know she will be able to receive donor milk in order to help her in the beginning stages of her life. I also have every intention to donate milk myself if I am able. If I can ease a mother’s mind and take away any guilt she may be feeling, I feel it is worth the extra time and effort. After hearing Henry was a recipient of donor milk, my friend became a milk donor to Texas Children’s milk bank since she produced too much! I LOVE that she was able to do that and I hope to follow in her footsteps. If you are thinking about donating you should! Being on the receiving side of milk donation, it really is immeasurable how much it helps a family and most importantly how much it helps these tiny babies!

To find out how you can become a donor, visit: texaschildrens.org/milk

February 10, 2014

Information Services (IS) has scheduled important updates to some systems and applications during the standard monthly downtime scheduled from Friday, February 14, to Sunday, February 16.

During the third weekend each month, IS routinely maintains, tests and upgrades a variety of systems and applications to ensure they are available when needed and perform properly to support Texas Children’s mission. Applications or systems with a greater possibility of impacting users are listed below.

Epic EMR
The Epic Electronic Medical Record (EMR) will be unavailable for about 15 minutes sometime from 1 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. Sunday, February 16, to address hardware issues. We expect the 15 minute downtime to occur at about 2 a.m., however, please be prepared to initiate downtime procedures immediately when the system is unavailable. Communications will be sent to Epic Downtime Leads when the downtime starts. During this downtime (or anytime Epic is unavailable):

  • Visit Connect for details on how to access results, reports and other items
  • Visit Connect for instructions on viewing a full, ‘read-only’ copy of Epic on any workstation
  • Visit Connect for an Epic downtime FAQ.

Workstations
Most Texas Children’s workstations will receive online software updates sometime from 10 p.m. Saturday, February 15, to 10 a.m. Monday, February 17. Visit Connect for schedule details and instructions for optional self-installation.

Workstation update notes:

  • Only a few machines in each area will be updated at the same time.
  • You will see an install notice on the workstation. You can click “OK” to start the update immediately; otherwise, the install will start automatically after 10 minutes.
  • Workstation updates take about one to two hours to install and will restart the machine when done. You can use the workstation during the update, but watch for a warning to shut down before the machine restarts. Remember to save your work often (especially for clinical applications).

Questions?
For questions regarding:

  • Standard monthly downtime, please call the IS Service Desk at Ext. 4-3512 (external 832-824-3512)
  • Epic EMR downtime, please call 4-EPIC at Ext. 4-3742 (external 832-824-3742)

Last year the Texas Children’s loading dock received flower and candy deliveries on Valentine’s Day causing not only delivery delays of these items, but also a delay in patient care product deliveries.

To eliminate this problem please notify your spouses, significant others, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends not to send you Valentine gifts directly to the docks. Florist deliveries can be sent by the florists directly to your desk. The dock does not have the resources to deliver these thoughtful personal gifts as they are concentrating on the delivery of patient care products.

If flowers do come to the dock they will try their best to get them to you, but patient care product delivery takes precedence. They will attempt to deliver all personal items should they come to the dock; however, they may need to call individuals to come to the dock to pick up their gifts.

Thank you for your patience.

Texas Children’s Hospital is accepting graduate nurse (GN) applications internally starting Wednesday, February 5, for the July 2014 Registered Nurse Residency Program. This innovative program helps new graduate nurses transition from student nurse to professional nurse through a variety of interactive experiences and an ongoing support network.

The GN posting is currently active in MOLI (Job ID: 129445). If you are an interested and qualified employee, Texas Children’s Chief Nursing Officer, Lori Armstrong, encourages you to consider submitting an internal transfer request.

Texas Children’s is a powerhouse of talent and our team of July 2014 Graduate Nurses will be no exception. If you have questions about the Nurse Residency Program, please call Recruitment at Ext. 4-2020.