March 4, 2014

The Virani family is donating $2 million to Texas Children’s Cancer Center to establish and support research efforts at the Faris D. Virani Ewing’s Sarcoma Research Center, located on the 10th floor of Texas Children’s Hospital’s Feigin Center. The gift honors their 8 year old son Faris Virani’s battle with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare disease in which cancer cells are found in the bone or soft tissue. Diagnosed in January 2013, Faris is still in treatment but does not have any active disease.

The research efforts will aim to develop better diagnostic and therapeutic approaches and for a cure to become a reality for children with Ewing’s sarcoma. At a ceremony celebrating the new center, Faris presented pediatric oncologist, Dr. Jason Yustein, with a piggy bank containing the first gift towards the new research center.

Ewing’s sarcoma is the second most common bone tumor in childhood and one of the most prevalent pediatric tumors. Over the past 30-40 years because of the lack of understanding of the biology of Ewing’s sarcoma, only marginal advancements have been made in the care and management of patients with this disease. In order to develop better diagnostic and therapeutic approaches and a cure for Ewing’s sarcoma, more research need to be conducted so that efforts can be focused on improving treatment approaches.

Unfortunately, many patients with Ewing’s sarcoma experience metastatic disease that spreads to multiple sites in their body and a significant portion of patients that do respond to therapy eventually relapse. In the last 15 years, only one new chemotherapeutic agent has been introduced to the treatment regimen for patients with this disease and currently treatments are extremely intensive and may have both short and long term effects that can negatively impact lifestyle and quality of life for these patients.

February 25, 2014

The March of Dimes Texas Chapter has awarded a grant to Texas Children’s Health Plan to support “Becoming a Mom,” a program that delivers prenatal education in a group setting.

Texas Children’s Health Plan is currently offering the “Becoming a Mom – Comenzando bien Program” in Houston and Huntsville locations. The program’s goal is to provide supportive environments that promote healthy behaviors and positive birth outcomes. The “Becoming a Mom” program helps women overcome barriers to care and become informed of prenatal services.

As a managed care organization serving more than 360,000 members, Texas Children’s Health Plan provides Medicaid and CHIP insurance coverage for individuals in 21 counties, including Harris and the surrounding seven counties. Texas Children’s Health Plan supports pregnant women through the provision of “Becoming a Mom” classes, childbirth classes, home visitation programs and community events, spreading awareness of early prenatal visits and the benefits of waiting until after the 39th week of gestation before delivery.

March of Dimes is the leading nonprofit organization for pregnancy and baby health. With chapters nationwide and its premier event, March for Babies, the March of Dimes works to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. For the latest resources and information, visit marchofdimes.com or nacersano.org.

21914BrunoChumitazi150The Clinical Research Center presented the Clinical Research Award for fourth quarter 2013 to Dr. Bruno Chumpitazi, assistant professor, Department of Pediatrics-Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Baylor College of Medicine.

The award was established by the Clinical Research Center in collaboration with the Research Resources Office to recognize and honor individual contributions to protecting the best interest of the research subjects and compliance with applicable rules and regulations.

Dr. Chumpitazi’s research activities in the CRC focus in treatment and outcome evaluation of techniques to diagnose and treat gastrointestinal motility disorders in children.

Congratulations to Dr. Chumpitazi.

Most Texas Children’s Hospital telephone service at all locations will be unavailable from 1 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday, March 2, for maintenance.

What does this mean to you?

  • Red emergency phones will be available, and the hospital’s Disaster Routing Service will be activated.
  • Other available communication services include:
    • Beeper paging through 713-605-8989
    • Hospital page operator “0” can be dialed from any red phone to reach the page operator
    • IRM paging system will be available through page operators for normal hospital groups such as Inpatient Code Team, Transport Team, CARLA Teams and Pyros
    • Voalte-to-Voalte phone communication
  • No other phone-related services, including Spectralink, will be available until maintenance is completed.

What should you do?

  • All departments should implement standard downtime procedures during this outage.
  • If your SpectraLink handset displays “system unavailable” or “no PBX” after service resumes, turn the phone off and back on, and the error will clear.
  • Call Center Agents will have to log back into the telephone after service is restored to receive calls.

Questions?
Information Services is dedicated to providing a secure, reliable technology environment, and will provide the following support resources:

  • Before the outage – call the IS Service Desk at Ext. 4-3512
  • During the outage – call the IS Service Desk from a red emergency phone by dialing Ext. 5332.

Traffic on Fannin Street will experience unusually heavy congestion due to concurrent Spring Break and Rodeo activities in the area surrounding Texas Medical Center area from Monday, March 3, to Friday, March 21.

Due to these anticipated traffic problems, please keep the following in mind to help you adjust your travel schedule during these two weeks:

  • We can expect traffic congestion to cause shuttle travel times to increase; please adjust your schedules to accommodate potential traffic.
  • For those employees who use MetroRail to travel to and from Garage 19, be aware that the MetroRail cars will be more crowded than usual. Please allow extra time in your commute to avoid being late to work.
  • The shuttle route between the John P McGovern Campus, NRI and the Feigin Center should not be affected.
  • Please note that these plans may change during these weeks if necessary.

The latest issue of IS Technology News is now available online. Click here to view important technology news and helpful information such as:

  • How IS protects Texas Children’s against cyber security threats (and what you can do at home!)

Recent data breaches by major retailers exposed security vulnerabilities, and put millions of consumers at risk for spam, phishing and malware. Texas Children’s faces similar threats, so Information Services (IS) uses a combination of programs, policies and practices to protect both the organization and its individual employees and patients. In fact, many information security best practices can also protect you at home!

  • The IS Customer Support Portal has a fresh look and helpful new features. Check it out!
  • Enhance security and access to your favorite web sites with an (easy) update to Internet Explorer 8
  • Locked out of your computer? Never again with Password Reset!
  • Windows 7 migration benefits – they’re for everyone!

Please visit the Information Services Connect site for more helpful technology tips, updates and information.

Eight to 10 year-old African American girls and their parents are needed to participate in an eight-week online program promoting healthy eating and physical activity.

Requirements for participation:

  • Must speak and understand English
  • Access to high-speed internet
  • A personal email address
  • A parent willing to participate

There are no meetings to attend. Participation can be from the comfort and convenience of your home. A stipend is available.

This program is conducted by the Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine. Email Marilyn or call 713-798-7002 to register or for more information.