May 18, 2016

51816surgerydesign640Texas Children’s Hospital is proud to announce the American College of Surgeons (ACS) has verified the hospital as a Level 1 Children’s Surgery Center.

The one-year verification was awarded following an extensive pilot site visit in May 2015. During the visit, Texas Children’s assisted in the review and refinement of guidelines set forth by ACS with the goal of improving the safety and quality of pediatric surgery performed at centers across the country. At this time, Texas Children’s is among only two Level 1 Children’s Surgery Centers in the United States, and the only children’s hospital in Texas and the southwest region to earn this distinction.

“We are honored to be one of the inaugural hospitals to receive this esteemed verification,” said Texas Children’s Surgeon-In-Chief Dr. Charles D. Fraser Jr. “As a leader in pediatric surgical care, we believe it is important for children to undergo surgery with a focused, dedicated team of specialized pediatric surgeons, anesthesiologists, radiologists, intensivists, nurses, staff and support departments committed to pediatric care. We carefully track our outcomes with the goal of providing the best possible results. We are honored to be recognized for our commitment to high-quality care for our patients.”

A Level 1 verification requires Texas Children’s to provide surgery and anesthesia for all major pediatric specialties for children of all ages – from premature infants to adolescents. Additionally, the hospital must have not only the highest level Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), pediatric emergency medicine physicians and pediatric radiologists available all day, every day, but also the most robust data collection, outcomes assessment and quality improvement efforts.

A team of 25 physicians, nurses and members of the administration, anesthesiology, nursing, the outcomes and impact service, the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), quality, radiology, surgery and transport teams served on Texas Children’s ACS verification committee.

The Department of Surgery at Texas Children’s represents more than 90 full-time pediatric-focused surgeons who are also faculty members at Baylor. Surgeons, advanced practice providers and more than 700 Texas Children’s staff members are dedicated to caring for and improving the health of children through patient care, education and research. The team’s efforts are evident in the more than 26,700 operative cases performed, more than 1,200 trauma admissions and 144,800 outpatient clinic visits in 2015.

For more information about Texas Children’s Department of Surgery, visit texaschildrens.org/surgery.
For more information about the Level 1 Children’s Surgery Center verification, visit the ACS website.

51816drparsons175

Dr. Will Parsons, a pediatric oncologist at Texas Children’s Cancer Center and associate professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine, will participate in the efforts to accelerate cancer research through the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative. Parsons will join the National Cancer Institute’s Blue Ribbon Panel Working Group on Pediatric Cancer, which is providing insight and direction to the Moonshot initiative.

The Moonshot initiative was announced in January by President Barack Obama and is being led by Vice President Joe Biden. The initiative aims to accelerate current cancer research efforts and break down barriers to progress, making more therapies available to more patients, while also improving the ability to prevent cancer and detect it at an early stage.

The NCI, in consultation with the National Institutes of Health and the White House, assembled the Blue Ribbon Panel, a working group of the National Cancer Advisory Board, to provide expert advice on the vision, proposed scientific goals and implementation of the National Cancer Moonshot. The panel will consider how to best advance the themes proposed for the Moonshot, including an intensive examination of the opportunities and impediments in cancer research.

The Blue Ribbon Panel’s working groups, including the pediatric cancer group, will gather input from the cancer research community and industry across specific disciplines and sectors. The findings and recommendations of the panel and its working groups will be reported to the National Cancer Advisory Board (NCAB) later this summer. The NCAB will use the panel’s findings to provide final recommendations to the NCI director, who will in turn deliver a report to the White House Moonshot Task Force and ultimately to the President.

“I’m excited about the potential of the Moonshot initiative to improve care for children with cancer through collaborative research,” Parsons said. “We look forward to contributing to these discussions based on our experience at Texas Children’s Cancer Center.”

In addition to coordinating the Working Groups, the Blue Ribbon Panel is accepting cancer research ideas to be considered under the Moonshot from the scientific community and general public. Individuals and groups are encouraged to submit their ideas through July 1 to CancerResearchIdeas.cancer.gov.

Parsons is director of the Pediatric Center for Precision Oncology at Texas Children’s Cancer Center, as well as the co-director of the Brain Tumor Program and the Cancer Genetics and Genomics Program. He specializes in the treatment of children with brain and spinal cord tumors, and his team’s research has been critical to the understanding of genes involved in pediatric solid tumors, leukemias, and histiocytic disorders.

In addition, Parsons’ research program focuses on the clinical application of genomic technologies in pediatric cancer care. He is the co-principal investigator with Dr. Sharon Plon, professor of pediatrics – oncology at Baylor, on the Baylor Advancing Sequencing in Childhood Cancer Care, or BASIC3, study, a National Human Genome Research Institute and National Cancer Institute-funded Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research project to examine the usefulness of tumor and germline whole exome sequencing in children newly diagnosed with certain cancers. He also serves as the Children’s Oncology Group study chair for the NCI Pediatric MATCH study, a precision oncology clinical trial for children with relapsed and refractory cancers that is planned to open in late 2016.

51816KateMazur175The Clinical Research Center/Research Resources Office has presented the Clinical Research Award for Second Quarter 2016 to Kate Mazur, instructor and pediatric nurse practitioner, Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers.

This 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.

Mazur’s research activities in the CRC focus on conducting clinical trials of novel therapies to treat pediatric cancers. She actively participates in the consent process and screening, management of patients enrolled on Phase I and II clinical trials, as well as palliative and supportive care for these patients and their families.

May 10, 2016

This fall, Texas Children’s will open its doors to the outpatient building of Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands. Soon thereafter in the spring of 2017, Texas Children’s second community hospital will be ready to serve The Woodlands and beyond.

“Tellepsen Construction has made tremendous progress,” said Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands President Michelle Riley-Brown. “The interior building is coming along nicely with walls, door frames and above the ceiling utilities are being installed as we speak. The design of the landscape is coming along as well and will include three fountains, a court yard and our trademark colorful yard letters.”

When people finally get to walk through the doors of the hospital, Riley-Brown said they will be greeted by a facility that is inviting, open and designed with a Spirit of the Woods theme to incorporate the lush, woodsy landscape that surrounds it. Just inside the main entrance, for example, is a grand staircase that will simulate a tree house, giving the area a safe, central location for children and families visiting Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands.

The decision to build the hospital was made after the success of Texas Children’s first community hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus. The goal of the location north of Houston is to provide dedicated pediatric care to the fast-growing population of The Woodlands, Kingwood, Conroe, Spring, Magnolia, Humble, Huntsville and beyond.

“Having Texas Children’s quality care closer, fewer families will have to drive 35 miles to the Texas Medical Center to receive pediatric health care,” Riley-Brown said. “Hopefully, that will bring peace of mind to many families and parents that we are close by if they need us.”

Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands will build on a decade’s worth of relationships Texas Children’s has built in the community through our primary and sub-specialty care at Texas Children’s Pediatrics locations and the Texas Children’s Health Center The Woodlands. The 560,000-square-foot complex will offer inpatient and outpatient specialty pediatric care, and facilities will include 72 outpatient exam rooms, 25 emergency center exam rooms, 28 critical care rooms, 32 acute care rooms, 12 radiology rooms and four operating rooms.

The hospital’s leadership team is in place with Riley-Brown as president of the hospital, Dan DiPrisco as senior vice president, Dr. Charles Hankins as chief medical officer and Dr. Jeffrey Shilt as chief surgical officer. The hospital’s director team also has been chosen and includes Trent Johnson, Ketrese White, Julie Barrett, and Cathy Pierantozzi. As for providers, 40 percent of the hospital’s physicians have been hired and about 20 percent of its mid-level providers are in place. “Our goal is to attract the best and the brightest,” said Riley-Brown, adding that the hospital will employee about 650 employees when we open the doors. “We hope that people find this as an opportunity and will express interest in joining the Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands team.”

To prepare for the opening of the outpatient building and the hospital, seven activation teams have been formed that comprise 130 people from across the Texas Children’s system, including hospital-based services, clinical support services and patient care services. The goal of the teams is to ensure activation planning, operational alignment, increase visibility to the project and promote committed partnerships. Leaders also will be working with Dr. Jennifer Arnold and the Pediatric Simulation Center to plan for simulation and training prior to both the inpatient and outpatient facilities opening.

“It’s pretty exciting to know that we’re making history at Texas Children’s Hospital with yet another milestone of opening a community setting for the hospital,” Riley-Brown said. “We can’t wait to open the doors!”

See below for the most up-to-date aerials of the hospital. Click here to get a snapshot of what will be offered at Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands.

51116texaschildrensrice640What happens when Texas Children’s surgeons and Rice University engineering students collaborate to develop innovative solutions to reduce the pain of stent removal after a urinary tract procedure? An award-winning device that could potentially revolutionize the field of pediatric urologic surgery.

Last fall, Dr. Chester Koh, a pediatric urologist and surgeon at Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine, challenged a group of Rice students to come up with an innovative tool to simplify ureteral stent removals, a fairly common procedure that is performed on more than 2,000 pediatric patients nationwide each year.

After a stent is inserted into a patient’s ureter to improve urine flow from the kidneys to the bladder, the stent is removed after four weeks of healing. The current procedure involves inserting an endoscope into the urethra and bladder to locate the stent and pull it out, which requires children to be placed under anesthesia.

After extensively collaborating with Texas Children’s surgeons to better understand the challenges of the current procedure and the need for refinement, the Rice team developed a simple, less invasive device to remove ureteral stents from children using a small magnetic bead and a powerful custom-built electromagnet the team designed and 3-D printed at Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen. The tiny metallic bead can pass safely through the urethra as the magnet pulls the bead out of the body followed by the stent that the bead is attached to.

Rice students briefly considered designing a stent that would dissolve over time, but decided the magnetic attachment would be far simpler and less prone to complications. This new innovation in ureteral stent removal in children is less painful and costs two-thirds less than the standard procedure because it does not require anesthesia and it can be completed in minutes rather than hours.

The team’s invention, the Ureteral Stent Electromagnetic Removable Bead, won two significant awards this month: the top $5,000 prize at Rice University’s annual Engineering Design Showcase and the Grand Prize for student design at the annual Design of Medical Devices Conference in Minneapolis.

“We hope this device will transform the field of pediatric urologic surgery,” said Rice bioengineering student Eric Yin, who is considering applying his engineering expertise to a career in pediatric medicine. “A lot of devices are designed for adults and Dr. Koh is one of the movers trying to develop more devices that are designed for children.”

Koh says the Rice team’s new device – and others designed in partnership with Texas Children’s surgeons – address the severe shortage of medical devices designed for infants and children.

“The development of pediatric medical devices lag adult device development by more than 10 years,” said Koh, who has a mechanical engineering degree from the University of California, Berkeley. “This is an important example of why academic partnerships are needed to advance pediatric medical device projects, since the pediatric medical device pipeline is currently limited. I applaud the Rice team for showing its dedication and passion to the kids under our care at Texas Children’s.”

Prior to coming to Texas Children’s to establish the robotic surgery program in 2013, Koh co-founded a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-supported pediatric device consortium based in Southern California. He is creating a similar initiative at Texas Children’s, drawing on the top engineering talent in the region.

This year, three engineering teams from Rice University and six teams from Texas A&M University are collaborating with Texas Children’s surgeons to develop new pediatric medical devices. with support from the Texas Children’s Auxiliary Denton Cooley Innovation Award. Koh plans to collaborate with other institutions in the future.

51116CancerCenternursingconference640Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers held its inaugural “No one fights alone: enhancing nursing care of the pediatric hematology/oncology patient” conference at Texas Children’s last month. The conference provided pediatric hematology/oncology nurses with opportunities for professional enrichment and to gain industry connections to help improve the overall health and outcomes of their patients.

More than 70 participants from hospitals all across the southern region of the U.S. were in attendance and educated on the current and emerging trends in care such as popular diagnostic features, revolutionary therapies and recommended symptom management.

Numerous sessions were held during the three-day event, including a presentation on the latest therapy treatment for neuroblastoma, a survivor panel and a discussion about Texas Children’s work on the inclusion of screening for severe combined immune deficiencies in the Texas state newborn screening. This newborn screening has led to early detection and successful treatment with bone marrow transplants here at Texas Children’s. Participants also enjoyed a session on symptom management for pediatric oncology patients by keynote speaker, Dr. Marilyn Hockenberry.

Hockenberry currently serves as the associate dean for research at the Duke University School of Nursing and has over 30 years of experience in pediatric oncology nursing, almost 20 of which were spent at Texas Children’s. She was the first director and pioneer of the Nurse Practitioner (NP) program at Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers and introduced the NP post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) procedure team and the NP graduate fellowship program.

The conference concluded with a special, inspirational performance by Purple Songs Can Fly, a partner of the Periwinkle Arts In Medicine program at Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers that provides patients the opportunity to write, record and share their own songs.

51116drweiner175Texas Children’s is proud to announce Dr. Howard Weiner as chief of neurosurgery. Texas Children’s is ranked No. 2 nationally in neurology and neurosurgery by U.S. News World Report. For more information visit texaschildrens.org/neurosurgery.

“I am thrilled to welcome Dr. Weiner,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser Jr., surgeon-in-chief at Texas Children’s and professor of surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. “His clinical interests and vision for the next stages of development of neurosurgery at Texas Children’s are complementary to the expertise of our team. The patients and families we treat will benefit greatly from his tremendous experience in the field.”

Weiner’s clinical interests include medically refractory epilepsy and tuberous sclerosis complex. He also treats children with brain and spinal tumors, congenital malformations, tethered cords, chiari malformations, craniosynostosis, hydrocephalus, spina bifida and spasticity. His research interests have included the biology of tuberous sclerosis complex, the role of the sonic hedgehog signaling pathway in medulloblastoma and therapeutic strategies for germ cell tumors of the central nervous system.

Weiner, who also serves as professor of surgery at Baylor, received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his medical degree from Cornell University Medical College. During residency, he was also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute research fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at New York University. Following residency, Weiner was awarded the Van Wagenen Fellowship by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons to study brain development in Paris. He also completed a fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery at New York University Medical Center.

Weiner is a member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Congress of Neurological Surgeons, American Society of Pediatric Neurosurgeons and the American Epilepsy Society.

“I also extend my thanks to Dr. Thomas Luerssen for his nine years of outstanding leadership and service as chief of neurosurgery at Texas Children’s,” added Fraser. “During his tenure, he built a truly preeminent neurosurgery team of consummate academic and clinical surgeons.”

Texas Children’s neurosurgery program is among the largest and most experienced pediatric neurosurgery units in the U.S. Expert neurosurgeons perform more than 950 surgeries annually for a broad range of pediatric neurosurgical disorders.