Innovation – Page 52 – Texas Children's News

May 19, 2015

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Almost 300 clinicians in the Department of Surgery attended the sixth annual Edmond T. Gonzales Jr., Surgical Research Day at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women on May 8. The event provided a forum for researchers to unveil their work highlighting remarkable advancements in the field of pediatric surgery.

“I look forward to this day every year,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser, Jr., surgeon-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital. “Our surgeons, residents and students are conducting innovative work that should contribute to better understanding of health issues that our patients experience. Their research is central to our core values as academic surgeons at Texas Children’s Hospital.”

The program featured seven oral presentations and 96 poster presentations spotlighting the academic efforts of the surgical faculty, post graduate fellows, nurses and advanced practice providers. In addition, lectures were given on surgical issues and awards were presented to honor faculty and research presentations.

This year’s awards and their recipients are:

The Samuel Stal Research Award for outstanding research by a resident or fellow in the Department of Surgery was presented to Dr. Yan Shi. The award is named after Dr. Samuel Stal, former chief of plastic surgery at Texas Children’s. Dr. Shi was recognized for his research in liver carcinoma.
Dr. Larry Hollier, chief of Plastic Surgery, was honored with the Faculty Research Mentor Award. The award is given on an annual basis to honor a Department of Surgery faculty member who currently serves as a research through career development, professional guidance or cultivation of research interests.
Dr. Paulette Abbas, research fellow in Pediatric Surgery, received the Best Poster award for, “Persistent Hypercarbia after Resuscitation Is Associated with Increased Mortality in Congenital Diaphragm Hernia Patients.”
Dr. Adesola C. Akinkuotu, research fellow in Pediatric Surgery, received the Best Oral Presentation award for her research, “Risk Stratification of Severity for Infants with CDH: Prenatal vs. Postnatal Predictors of Outcome.”

This year’s speakers were:

This year’s keynote speaker was Dr. Tom Jaksic, the W. Hardy Hendren Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He is also Vice Chairman of Pediatric General Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital and Surgical Director, Center for Advanced Intestinal Rehabilitation. He presented research on the metabolism of critically ill neonates and the management of children with intestinal failure.
Dr. Laurence McCullough, Dalton Tomlin chair in Medical Ethics and Health Policy, associate director for Education, Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine, presented a lecture on the professional responsibility of surgical innovation, research and treatment.

The Surgical Research Day Planning Committee included Dr. Jed Nuchtern (chair), Melinda Mathis (co-chair), Dr. Jennifer Dietrich, Dr. Chester Koh, Dr. Sandi Lam, Dr. Carlos Mery, Dr. Oluyinka Olutoye, Kathy Carberry, Matthew Girotto, Veronica Victorian, Shon Bower and Laura Higgins.

View more pictures of the Edmond T. Gonzales Surgical Research Day:

May 11, 2015

Bench and Bedside is a digest of the previous month’s stories about the clinical and academic activities of our physicians and scientists. We welcome your subsmissions and feedback.

April 28

Countdown to ICD-10: Deadline to meet educational requirements is September 1

On October 1, Texas Children’s and hospitals across the nation will switch from ICD-9 to the ICD-10 coding system to report patients’ diagnoses and procedures. The ICD-10 codes will allow greater specificity and accuracy in describing a patient’s diagnosis and classifying inpatient procedures. Texas Children’s education teams have developed helpful tools to ensure all employees are prepared for this mandatory conversion.

“We believe that communicating the change clearly and consistently will help ensure a smooth transition,” said Texas Children’s Chief Safety Officer Dr. Joan Shook. Read more

April 28

Super Star Physician: Dr. Stephanie Marton

Dr. Stephanie Marton from the Center for Children and Women – Greenspoint is the latest Texas Children’s Super Star physician. “Every day I see patients coming in to the Center, and I directly see the impact that Texas Children’s Hospital is making in this community.” Read more

April 28

Giardino to serve on ABMQ Board of Directors

Texas Children’s Chief Quality Officer and Senior Vice President Dr. Angelo Giardino was recently unanimously confirmed to serve on the American Board of Medical Quality (ABMQ) Board of Directors. The organization is closely associated with the American College of Medical Quality of which Giardino is a distinguished fellow. Read more

April 28

Patel receives distinguished fellowship award

Dr. Akash Patel will be presented with the 2015-2016 Christopher R. Getch Fellowship Award from the Congress of Neuroligical Surgeons Fellowships Committee during its annual meeting in September. This prestigious award provides $100,000 for advanced training and is given to a neurosurgeon or fellow engaged in clinical research that promises to significantly impact the field of neurosurgery. Read more

April 28

Dr. George Bisset receives prestigious award

Radiologist-in-Chief Dr. George Bisset will be honored for his contribution to pediatric radiology at the 45th annual Sociedade Paulista de Radiologia (SPR) meeting held in Brazil. The conference is the biggest diagnostic imaging meeting in Latin America and the fourth largest in the world. Bisset will be the first non-Brazilian to receive honorary membership in this organization. Read more

April 21

New Cain Labs website promotes groundbreaking epilepsy research

Texas Children’s has launched a new website dedicated to innovative epilepsy research conducted at the Cain Foundation Laboratories in the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute and other test centers around the world. The website also includes a repository of helpful information about epilepsy treatment programs for patients and their families, including a link to Texas Children’s Level IV Epilepsy Center. Read more

April 21

Surgeon-in-chief speaks at Texas Surgical Society meeting

Surgeon-in-Chief Dr. Charles D. Fraser, Jr. spoke at a Texas Surgical Society meeting on April 11 in Galveston. Fraser, who is the son-in-law of Dr. Denton A. Cooley, talked about the hospital’s 60-year history of pediatric heart surgery and the roles played by Cooley and himself. More

April 20

Texas Children’s Hospital helps determine standard of care for children with cleft lip and palate

Representatives from Texas Children’s Hospital: Dr. Laura Monson, pediatric plastic surgeon; Christy Hernandez, director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Outcomes and Impact Service; and Dr. John Wirthlin, craniofacial orthodontist, joined an international group of medical professionals, patients and parents to determine a standard set of outcome measures for children born with cleft lip and palate. These guidelines will help all institutions develp a standard treatment of care of this population of patients and will be available for implementation starting in February. Read more

April 14

Lee recognized for his contribution to fetal imaging advancements

Dr. Wesley Lee, co-director of Texas Children’s Fetal Center and section chief for women’s and fetal imaging at Baylor College of Medicine, recently received the William J. Fry Memorial Lecture Award from the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM). Read more

April 14

New PAPRs help provide full complement of PPE

Texas Children’s recently acquired 30 powered air purifying respirators (or PAPRs) to protect emergency responders from chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear agents. This addition to our PPE inventory helps ensure the safety of our health care professionals when they are treating patients with highly contagious infectious diseases. Read more

April 14

Texas Children’s, AAP partnership helps physicians advocate for their patients

Texas Children’s and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) signed a first-of-its-kind partnership agreement whereby every eligible faculty member of the Baylor College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics is a member in the AAP and the Texas Pediatric Society (TPS). Since this partnership began a year and a half ago, the following Texas Children’s faculty have been actively involved with the AAP and TPS to champion the health, safety and well-being of children: Dr. Robert Voigt, Dr. Robert Ricketts, Dr. Mark Gilger, Dr. Fernando Stein, Dr. Carol Tapia, Dr. Mark Ward, Dr. Krithka Lingappan and Dr. Bruno Chumpitazi. Read more

April 14

Texas Children’s Hospital receives Healthcare Informatics Magazine’s 2015 Innovator Award

Texas Children’s Hospital has earned second place in Healthcare Informatics Magazine’s fourteenth annual Innovator Awards. The award was given to Texas Children’s for its quality improvement work to identify, deploy and measure new best practices and improve outcomes for children with appendicitis.

“We felt there was an urgent need in the health care industry to accelerate the identification and deployment of shared guidelines of care,” said Dr. Charles Macias, Texas Children’s Chief Clinical Systems Integration Officer and Evidence Based Outcomes Center director. Read more

April 14

New pediatric urologist joins Department of Surgery

Dr. Duong Dai Tu has joined Texas Children’s as a new pediatric urologist. Tu, who started April 1, has been appointed assistant professor of urology and attending surgeon in urology at Baylor College of Medicine.

“Dr. Tu is bringing an exciting vision to the surgery team that will help us continue to develop a preeminent program, enabling us to better serve our patients and their families,” chief of Urology, Dr. David Roth said. Read more

April 7

Texas Children’s welcomes new surgeon and researcher, Dr. Sundeep Keswani

Dr. Sundeep Keswani joined Texas Children’s as a pediatric and fetal surgeon and an associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine. He also is the principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded laboratory. Read more

April 7

Transplant team perform 95 organ transplants in 2014

Transplant teams with Texas Children’s Hospital performed 95 solid organ transplants in 2014, continuing to serve as one of the largest, most active and successful pediatric transplant programs in the nation. The heart and the lung transplant programs were the largest in the country last year with 32 heart transplants and 16 lung transplants.

“Texas Children’s Transplant Services continues to earn its reputation as one of the best pediatric transplant programs in the country,” said Dr. John Goss, medical director of Transplant Services. Read more

April 7

CRC presents resarch award to Dr. Srivaths

The Clinical Research Center presented the Clinical Research Award for First Quarter 2015 to Dr. Poyyapakkam Srivaths, Department of Pediatrics – Renal, Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Srivaths’s research activities in the CRC focus on investigating cardiovascular morbidity associated with end stage renal disease (ESRD) in children. Read more

May 5, 2015

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Here at Texas Children’s, we proudly embrace the role of trailblazers to accelerate health care for our patients and their families. Unified in our infinite passion for the mission, we continuously innovate ourselves to meet new medical challenges and situations.

In December, we announced our plan to build an eight-bed special isolation unit at Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus. The unit is designed for children with highly contagious infectious diseases. Similar to the four other biocontainment units in the country, the one at Texas Children’s will be one of the only in the United States designated just for children.

“Having the best qualified people running the special isolation unit is key to its success,” said Dr. Gordon Schutze, the unit’s medical director. “Everyone involved will be specially trained in infection control, hospital epidemiology and management of infectious diseases in this special care setting.”

This elite Special Response Team will include physicians, registered nurses, medical technologists and environmental services technicians. The physicians and registered nurses will make up the care team while the medical technologists will perform special specimen testing in a state-of-the-art lab within the special isolation unit. In addition, the environmental services techs will handle waste processing from the unit through an autoclave.

The leaders dedicated to selecting the members of the Special Response Team have begun the process and are asking those who are interested in being a part of this unique and exciting team to raise their hands.

“Being part of this elite team will be an honor and a privilege,” said Dr. Judith Campbell, one of the unit’s associate medical directors.

Dr. Amy Arrington, the unit’s other associate medical director, agreed and said those who are selected to be on the Special Response Team will be getting the chance of a lifetime to impact care delivery. “The care that will be given inside the special isolation unit will be state-of-the art,” she said.

Texas Children’s leaders would like to have the members of the Special Response Team chosen and in place by this summer. At that point, the team will begin a series of ongoing training exercises that will ready them to be deployed to the SIU if it were to be activated.

To learn more about joining the Special Response Team, click here.

About the Special Isolation Unit

Since the decision to build a special isolation unit was made five months ago, members of a multidisciplinary team created specifically for the unit have visited two of the premiere biocontainment units in the country at Emory University in Atlanta and Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

Many of the lessons learned by these organizations have been incorporated into the design of the special isolation unit at Texas Children’s and can be seen in a mock-up of the unit that was recently built on the fourth floor of West Campus. Construction of the unit is anticipated to begin in May and the unit should be fully operational in October.

“This unit will help us do what we do best and that is care for children with some of the most serious and complex medical conditions,” West Campus President Chanda Cashen Chacón explained. “The organization’s decision to create a special isolation unit illustrates the level of competency and skill we have here at Texas Children’s.”

Texas Children’s Pediatrics is on Facebook! Like them today to connect with other families in your community and receive the latest news and updates about their practices.

Texas Children’s Pediatrics is the nation’s largest primary pediatric care network with 49 locations and more than 200 physicians who offer full-service pediatric care including:

Prenatal consultations
Well-child visits
Care of illnesses
Care and treatment of minor injuries
Vaccinations and immunizations
Preventative health care
School and sports physicals
Hearing and vision screening
Health care and nutrition education

For more information about Texas Children’s Pediatrics, go to http://www.texaschildrenspediatrics.org/

April 28, 2015

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On October 1, Texas Children’s will join other hospitals across the nation and switch from ICD-9 code sets to the expanded ICD-10 code sets to report patients’ diagnoses and procedures. For the first time in more than 30 years, this transition to ICD-10 will streamline the management of health care records to ensure even better outcomes for our patients.

The implementation of the ICD-10 coding system was delayed last year after Congress passed a new law to postpone cuts to the Medicare reimbursement rate for physicians. President Barack Obama recently signed legislation on April 16 that permanently replaces Medicare’s sustainable growth rate formula, putting a rest to the likelihood of another ICD-10 delay.

For more than a year, Texas Children’s ICD-10 preparedness teams have worked diligently to ensure all employees are prepared for the mandatory October 1 conversion. The most important action we can take is to educate ourselves and be ready for the transition, as it will impact physicians, coders, billing staff, nurses, labs, front desk and many other areas.

“We believe that communicating the change clearly and consistently will help ensure a smooth transition,” said Texas Children’s Chief Safety Officer Dr. Joan Shook. “Some of the tools we’ve developed – like a fact sheet that answers frequently asked questions – are specific to this change, while other times we use existing hospital and provider publications to keep everyone informed.”

Unlike the ICD-10 coding system, the 30-year-old ICD-9 codes use outdated terminology, lack specificity and is running out of room as hundreds of new diagnosis codes are submitted annually. The United States is the only country that uses ICD-9, and the switch to ICD-10 will enable more accurate comparisons of health care data with other countries.

With more than 140,000 diagnostic and procedural codes, ICD-10 will give our physicians, researchers and others a more accurate picture of our patient care by allowing greater specificity and precision in describing a patient’s diagnosis and classifying inpatient procedures.

ICD-10’s more expansive coding system also will help health care providers better track data to measure the quality and safety of care, process claims for reimbursement, and improve clinical, financial and administrative performance.

The two roles most affected by the ICD-10 conversion are physicians and coders. Texas Children’s has partnered with Baylor College of Medicine to provide e-learning videos for physicians to explain how the new coding system will affect their specialties. Coding staff have completed “boot-camps” to learn about the ICD-10 codes and have begun coding some accounts in ICD-9 and ICD-10. For others, the ICD-education team has prepared an area-specific curriculum that is available online through Healthstream.

The deadline for Physician providers to complete required online training is Tuesday, September 1. Click here to access the e-learning modules specific to your specialty.

“We want to ensure our providers are prepared as the ICD-10 implementation moves forward,” said Texas Children’s Director of Health Information Management Austin Frazier. “The latest education completion statistic is 10 percent, but our goal is to achieve 100 percent compliance by September 1.”

Texas Children’s continues to train its staff on the ICD-10 system and make system upgrades to the hospital’s electronic health record and other ancillary systems to ensure it is compatible with the ICD-10 code set.

Below are links to a quick fact sheet and helpful sites with basic information on ICD-10 to see how this change will impact your own medical record documentation.

For more information:
ICD-10 Video
ICD-10 Fact Sheet
ICD-10 Industry Updates
ICD-10 Myths and Facts

April 21, 2015

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Nearly 800 guests attending Texas Children’s Hospital’s The Forum Luncheon in The Woodlands on April 14 were treated to the very first look into what will be the only dedicated pediatric hospital serving communities north of Houston when the doors fully open in 2017.

Attendees previewed a virtual, behind-the-scenes tour of the Emergency Center, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), operating rooms, inpatient rooms and the Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Clinic through the eyes of three Texas Children’s patient families: Bennett Rhymes, Skylin Parker and Noah and Sammy Folloder. Each of the first-hand accounts highlighted the expert care Texas Children’s provided to them, which will soon be available closer to home for these families and the 380,000 children in the area.

“Our new hospital is being designed, top to bottom, with children and families in mind,” said Michelle Riley-Brown, president of Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands. “I am really excited about all that Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands will have to offer when we open our doors.”

Ground was broken on the new community hospital 15 months ago and progress is being made on the structure every day. Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands building project is part of the Promise campaign. The goal of the comprehensive $475 million fundraising effort is to help ensure the future of Texas Children’s as a leader in pediatric and women’s health.

To date, $26 million has been raised for Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands. The following donors were recognized at last week’s forum for their significant gifts:

Anadarko
The Howard Hughes Corporation
Woodforest National Bank
Dawn and Richard Rawson

“Through the Promise campaign, each of you in this audience will have a unique chance to see the amazing work that has resulted from your philanthropy every time you drive by this new hospital,” Dawn Rawson said at the forum. “Every time you see a child walking through those doors, you will know that you helped make that child’s care possible.”

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Texas Children’s has launched a new website dedicated to innovative epilepsy research conducted at the Cain Foundation Laboratories and other test centers around the world.

The Cain Labs located in the Jan and Dan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) at Texas Children’s is named after Houston philanthropists Gordon and Mary Cain, who established a foundation to fund pediatric epilepsy research programs at Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine.

42215Cainlabinside640 Under the leadership of Dr. John Swann, a professor of pediatrics and neuroscience at Baylor and a former president of the American Epilepsy Society, researchers in the Cain Labs have made remarkable advances in our understanding of the molecular causes that underlie persistent seizures and cognitive and behavioral disabilities in children with intractable epilepsy.

You can visit the Cain Labs website at cainlabs.texaschildrens.org. (The website is best viewed with Chrome, IE8/9 or other modern browsers.)

“This newly designed website showcases our world-class researchers and their latest life-changing discoveries in epilepsy that occur every day inside the Cain labs,” said Texas Children’s Digital Marketing specialist Dr. Raji Natarajan, who designed the website and is a scientific research writer for the Cain Labs and NRI websites.

The epilepsy research website also includes a repository of helpful information about epilepsy treatment programs for patients and their families, including a link to Texas Children’s Level IV Epilepsy Center.

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