October 23, 2018

On October 19, Texas Children’s leaders cut the ribbon to our health system’s newest addition – Texas Children’s Specialty Care Austin.

The clinic, at 8611 N. Mopac Expressway, Suite 300, officially opens Thursday, October 25, and will offer services in cardiology, and ophthalmology. Pulmonology services will begin in mid-November and Allergy and Immunology will begin in December. Scheduling for cardiology, ophthalmology, and pulmonary is now open, and schedules for Allergy & Immunology services will open in November.

“Our goal is to supplement the great health care options already available to Austin-area families and improve access to specialty care in a convenient location,” Executive Vice President Michelle Riley-Brown said.

The 26,000 square foot clinic has 30 exam rooms including five eye lanes. This exam area is the comprehensive site where patients have their vision checked and ophthalmic professionals conduct exams and meet with patients. Each specialty has two to four dedicated rooms depending on the number of providers. There is an additional 26,000 square feet of shell space on the second floor available for future expansion.

Outpatient Radiology services are available for internal and external patients. For cardiology, EKGs are available to record heart activity, echocardiogram to capture images of the heart, and a portable device called holter monitors that also measures and records heart activity. There is also a pulmonary diagnostic laboratory available to perform a number of pulmonary tests such as spirometry, bronchodilator response evaluations and oxygen saturation.

“We have recruited the best and brightest,” Physician-in-Chief Dr. Mark W. Kline said. “We did it at West Campus, The Woodlands and we are doing it again here in Austin.”

Staff at the clinic provide specialized clinical and diagnostic care. Several specialties expected to be provided at the clinic in the future are:

  • Allergy & Immunology
  • Dermatology
  • Endocrinology
  • Gastroenterology
  • Neurology
  • Optometry
  • Plastic surgery
  • Urology

“At Texas Children’s, we are extremely proud to be in Austin,” Vice President Ivett Shah said. “Being here is an extension of our mission — so that we can provide the very best care to even more children who need it. We are honored to have everyone respond so positively and we are so grateful to be here, serving you.”

Click here to visit the website for more information, or call 737-220-8200 to schedule an appointment.

October 16, 2018

Sweeping views of the Houston skyline from high atop the Lester and Sue Smith Legacy Tower were the backdrop for a special ceremony to formally dedicate the 23rd floor as the Direct Energy Patient Floor. The floor will serve as the new home of the Heart Center’s Cardiac Patient Care Unit.

Texas Children’s and Direct Energy executives, as well as physicians, staff and volunteers celebrated the milestone alongside U.S. Representatives Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green, and State Representative Sarah Davis. A bright orange ribbon cutting ceremony followed remarks from Texas Children’s President and CEO Mark Wallace, Manu Asthana, president of Direct Energy Home, and Chief of Pediatric Cardiology Dr. Daniel Penny.

“This facility, with all its new technologies, is something that we’ve all accomplished together,” Penny said. “But the point of all this technology is to shorten these children’s hospital stays, to reduce the number of operations they need, and to give them back their childhood. Direct Energy has been with us from the start and has helped us see it through. And we owe them a heartfelt thank you.”

Following the ribbon cutting, the festivities continued as Direct Energy volunteers visited patient rooms with the Direct Energy Fun Cart, which is full of toys and activities for patients and their families to enjoy during their hospital stay.

In 2015, Direct Energy committed $5 million to Promise: The Campaign for Texas Children’s Hospital to support the expansion of the Heart Center. It is the largest corporate gift ever made to a Texas Children’s campaign priority. With Direct Energy’s generous support, Texas Children’s is able to provide highly specialized care to even more children who come to the hospital for help – and particularly to those who are the most critically ill and have the most complex cardiac conditions.

To learn more about the Heart Center visit texaschildrens.org/heart.

October 2, 2018

Last week was monumental for Texas Children’s with the move of our No. 1 ranked Heart Center into the new state-of-the-art Legacy Tower. The milestone came just months after the historic May 22 move of our pediatric intensive care and progressive care units into the spacious, high-tech tower adjacent to the Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women and across the street from Mark Wallace Tower.

“What a great day it’s been for everyone at Texas Children’s as we’ve moved into the upper floors of Legacy Tower,” said Texas Children’s President and CEO Mark Wallace. “We’ve transferred a lot of patients today and everything has gone flawlessly. This remarkable new space will make a world of difference for the critically ill patients and families we serve.”

View photos below from the move and the events that followed.

The Move
Over the course of about eight hours on September 25, six specially-trained clinical teams comprised of more than 200 members transported 64 heart patients, some critically ill, safely to their new, state-of-the-art rooms in Legacy Tower. The patients ranged in age from 3 days to 22 years.

The following day, on September 26, 11-year-old Colin Rankin of Dallas, became the first patient to undergo a cardiac catheterization procedure and an intra-cath MRI in Legacy Tower at the Heart Center’s new Charles E. Mullins, M.D. Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories.

Moments before Colin’s procedure, performed by Dr. Athar Qureshi, a ribbon cutting ceremony was held to commemorate the opening of our four new catheterization labs and integrated MRI. Dr. Charles E. Mullins, the pioneering Texas Children’s physician and father of modern interventional pediatric cardiology for whom the suite of labs are named, was present at the ceremony and cut the ribbon along with Dr. Henri Justino, director of the Mullins Cardiac Catheterization Labs.

On September 27, Associate Chief of Congenital Heart Surgery Dr. Jeff Heinle cut the ribbon to officially open the Heart Center’s new cardiovascular operating rooms, and to usher in a new era of cardiac surgery at Texas Children’s. Later that morning, 4-year-old Rizan Merchant underwent the first surgical intervention in the expansive new space – a Fontan procedure, performed by Heinle.

And on October 1, patients received treatment for the first time in the new Legacy Tower Therapy Gym. The gym is a powerful resource to help children and parents learn and focus on what they can do, rather than what they can’t. Features include machines for building core strength and balance, exercise bikes, and a bathtub and set of stairs for parents to practice everyday tasks at home with their children.

A week before the move, patients and families entered the doors of the Heart Center’s new outpatient clinic for the first time. Situated on the 21st and 22nd floors of Legacy Tower, the clinic is designed top to bottom with Texas Children’s families in mind. The bright, welcoming space was specially configured to offer a more personal approach to care, and to handle high clinical volume. During the first afternoon clinic session, 25 patients were seen, and 18 outpatient echocardiograms and 18 outpatient ECGs were performed. To read more about the new Outpatient Clinic, click here.

Throughout the entire move and for days afterward, the Legacy Tower Go Live Support Center was set up on the fourth floor of the Pavilion for Women and comprised of hundreds of individuals from across the hospital system who focused on patient move tracking from West Tower to Legacy Tower. The team included support staff from Supply Chain, Security, BioMedical Engineering, Facilities Operations, Information Services, Pharmacy and Respiratory Care.

“We all are incredibly blessed by this space, but this move isn’t just about the building. It’s the people as well,” said Vice President Judy Swanson. “We have such a committed, amazing team, all of whom worked so hard to make this move happen and to make it special for our patients and families.”

The Purpose
Texas Children’s started planning for Legacy Tower more than five years ago as an effort to reinvest in the programs our most critically ill patients need. Demand for these services continues to grow – here in our community and far beyond Houston. And prior to Legacy Tower, our core areas – Critical Care, Emergency Center and ORS/PACU – were often at capacity.

As an organization, we needed to make changes that advance quality, service, safety and strategic growth. We needed to broaden our expertise and better coordinate care to improve the experiences of our patients and their families. And we needed to expand our access to make certain we do not have to turn children away when they need us most.

Legacy Tower is helping Texas Children’s accomplish all of this and more. The 640,000-square-feet of new space includes:
– 8 floors for Texas Children’s Heart Center
– 7 floors of intensive care patient rooms
– 1 radiology suite
– 6 high-intensity surgical operating rooms
– 4 cardiovascular operating rooms
– 2 intraprocedural MRIs
– 4 cardiac catheterization labs.

A helistop atop Legacy Tower is scheduled to open in November.

“The building of Legacy Tower has been a long journey and has really shown Texas Children’s at its best,” said Executive Vice President Mark Mullarkey. “This effort is and has always been focused around our patients and families.”

The Future
For our clinical staff, Legacy Tower will give them a better place to do what they do best – treat some of our most critically ill patients. It also will position them to continue to provide some of the best pediatric care in the world.

“Everything we would ever want as a specialty is here,” said new Chief of Congenital Heart Surgery Dr. Christopher Caldarone. “We have new and innovative centers like the exercise center, the gym where we can show patients what they’re capable of doing rather than telling them what they can’t do.”

All of this sets Texas Children’s apart, Caldarone said, adding that the only way to stay ahead of everyone else is make sure we bring all the expertise available to bear to every decision for every baby in a timely manner.

“That’s no small feat,” he said. “I think that’s where we’re going to be able to set ourselves apart.”

Chief of Pediatric Cardiology Dr. Daniel Penny said everything about the new Heart Center is about reducing the impact of heart disease on children and on their families.

“Whether it’s the amazing new clinical technologies that we’ve built, our new magnet in the Cardiac Catheter Lab, right down to the tiny design features,” Penny said. “They were all done with one thing in mind and that is what was best for parents and their children.”

Dr. Lara Shekerdemian, service chief of Critical Care Services, said everyone is extremely excited about Legacy Tower, the additional capacity it provides and the overall better environment it has made available to patients, families and staff. Patient rooms, Shekerdemian noted, are twice the size of the old rooms in West Towers. Dedicated family space has been incorporated into the design of the building and each inpatient room has its own bathroom.

“It’s a bright, beautiful, spacious, quiet and peaceful environment,” she said. “It’s a huge change from what we had previously.”

The past few weeks have been a flurry of activity as phase II of the Legacy Tower move-in drew to a close. In the final push, we opened the Heart Center outpatient clinic, moved 65 cardiovascular acute care and cardiovascular intensive care unit patients from West Tower to Legacy Tower, and opened our new catheterization labs and cardiovascular operating rooms. We also celebrated another exciting opening – a third blood bank, located on the 16th floor of Legacy Tower.

“The new blood bank is another major milestone for Texas Children’s,” said Transfusion Safety Officer Nicole Crews, RN. “Ensuring potentially life-saving blood products are quickly and more easily accessible is key to the care of many patients in Legacy Tower. This new location will increase efficiency and ensure we have the right blood products available when they’re needed.”

In an emergency situation when a blood product is needed, time is of the essence. If blood is closer to the bedside, runners don’t have to go as far to travel. Now, with locations in Legacy Tower, the Pavilion for Women and Abercrombie Tower (servicing both West Tower and Mark Wallace Tower), transport times could be reduced to as little as 5 to 10 minutes, down from 20 to 30.

In addition to proximity convenience, Texas Children’s blood banks are committed to providing the safest and highest quality blood products for our patients.

“Due to our tremendous volume and the diverse needs of not only our patients, but of the departments and service areas that require blood, we have to make sure we always have the right blood products available,” Crews said. “We provide plasma, platelets, red blood cells and cryoprecipitate for everything from pre- and post-op procedures to PICU patients, who can need three to four transfusions a day.”

At Texas Children’s, we’re fortunate to have a blood bank at each of our three hospital campuses. Combined, between 2,400 and 2,800 products (units and aliquots) are issued every month across our campuses, making transfusions possible for more than 500 patients.

The transfusion process comprises several steps and touchpoints – including type/screen collection and processing – and must be completed with the utmost safety, and at the highest standards, to mitigate risk and provide the patient with the best possible care. The blood bank is committed to meeting and exceeding the highest safety standards for every patient and every transfusion. To ensure that high level of excellence, Crews teaches the Five Rights of safe transfusion practices:

  • Right patient
  • Right processes
  • Right blood product
  • Right place
  • Right volume/rate

“We want staff across the hospital to know that the new blood bank in Legacy Tower is open and fully operational,” said Crews. “Many months were spent planning, preparing and validating equipment to ensure the utmost service is provided, and Transfusion Medicine and blood bank personnel are ready and excited to continue to grow with Texas Children’s and our patients.”

Learn more about our blood bank locations and which one you should visit to pick up your patient’s blood.

On September 21, Texas Children’s Hospital hosted His Excellency Mokgweetsi E.K. Masisi, president of Botswana, along with his family and members of his delegation. President Masisi met with clinical and executive leaders at Texas Children’s for a luncheon and tour to discuss pressing health care issues facing Botswana. The gathering also served as an opportunity to assess the progress we have made together to help combat pediatric illnesses in his country, including HIV/AIDS, cancer and hematologic diseases.

“I must begin by giving a very direct word of appreciation and thanks to Texas Children’s and Bristol-Myers Squibb, for you might not fully comprehend what you did for a whole nation state and civilization,” President Masisi said during his opening remarks at the luncheon held in Peterkin Board Room. “The government and people of Botswana will remain forever grateful for your generous response to our urgent appeal during literally our darkest and most perilous hour at the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. When we thought all else was lost, your generosity, your humanity, your assistance among others brought smiles to many of our families, and the nation at large.”

With the generous support of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative at Texas Children’s Hospital (BIPAI) began working in Botswana in 2001. They started out small, training doctors and nurses, and testing and treating children with HIV. They then went big in 2003, building the Botswana-Baylor Children’s Clinical Centre of Excellence, a Centre of Excellence where state-of-the-art HIV/AIDs care is administered to children.

“It’s been a blessing to be in partnership with the Ministry of Health, and with the government of Botswana in absolutely everything we’ve done,” said Dr. Mark W. Kline, president and founder of BIPAI, physician-in-chief of Texas Children’s Hospital and chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. “It really has changed the world for hundreds of thousands of children across the African continent and around the world.”

The goal of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Texas Children’s, BIPAI and the Ministries of Health, Kline explained, is to implement the same principles that have been applied to HIV/AIDS to the treatment of cancer among African children, who for decades have not received the life-saving therapy they need and deserve.

In the United States, where there are 15,000 cases of pediatric cancer a year, 80 percent of children survive and most have a very good quality of life, statistics show. In Sub-Saharan Africa, of the more than 100,000 children who develop pediatric cancer each year, 90 percent die.

View photos below from His Excellency Mokgweetsi E.K. Masisi, president of Botswana’s visit.

Dr. David Poplack, director of Global HOPE (Hematology-Oncology Pediatric Excellence) and associate director of Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers, said the discrepancy and inequity these statistics represent are intolerable, and are why the Global HOPE cancer program – a partnership between Texas Children’s Hospital, BIPAI and Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, along with the Ministries of Health in six sub-Saharan African countries, including Botswana – are working to correct it.

“Africa is now poised to make major advances in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer,” Poplack said. “Based on our experience in the United States, we know what is possible, and we know what it takes to achieve success. We believe Botswana now has a similar opportunity to dramatically improve childhood cancer treatment and care; not only in Botswana, but across the continent.”

To help accomplish this, Global HOPE is working with the Ministry of Health to establish a Center of Excellence in pediatric care in Botswana as well as a pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship training program that will make Botswana a hub for training across Southern Africa. Centers of Excellence also are being established in Malawi and Uganda as part of the Global HOPE program.

Global HOPE was created in February 2017 as a $100 million initiative to create an innovative pediatric hematology-oncology treatment network in sub-Saharan Africa. The program already is making great strides, treating more than 1,000 patients, training 369 health care professionals, and graduating the first class of physician fellows enrolled in the first Pediatric Hematology Oncology Fellowship Program in East Africa.

“Our relationship with Botswana has spanned 15 years, a long time, and was the inception point of Texas Children’s global work in Africa,” said President and CEO Mark Wallace. “We look forward to continuing our extraordinary partnership for many, many years to come and know that your focus on innovation and continuing to create a higher standard of excellence for health care for your country will impact the quality of life for the people of Botswana for generations to come.”

Discussions about these efforts continued throughout the evening at an event at the St. Regis Hotel where leaders from Houston, throughout the United States and Botswana gathered to celebrate the incredible work underway.

Click here for more information on Global HOPE.

September 10, 2018

On September 11, Texas Children’s opened its 12th urgent care clinic, the second of which is located near a Texas Children’s Emergency Center.

The recently opened urgent care is located next to the Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus Emergency Center to help manage the Emergency Center’s low-acuity patient population and to serve patients and families in the West Houston area. The care team includes front office staff, nurses and clinical support staff, and board certified pediatricians and pediatric-focused advanced practice providers.

At 4,250 square feet, the clinic has 11 exam rooms, an X-ray room, and a spacious waiting area covered in murals, providing a relaxing, child-friendly atmosphere.

“A strong collaboration between this Urgent Care and the Emergency Center is going to be critical,” said Sara Montenegro, assistant vice President at West Campus. “It has been great so far as we have simulated ahead of time and practiced best and worst case scenarios to make sure we are as prepared as possible.”

This collaboration with the Emergency Center offers a quicker and less expensive option for low-acuity patients. To be seen at the clinic, patients can go directly there or be transferred from the Emergency Center after being assessed. If they are transferred, patients and their family members will be escorted to the clinic’s location.

“We are very excited to be out here at West Campus,” said Gary Macleod, the clinic’s director of clinical operations. “Hospital-based urgent cares are always really exciting for us. The ability to work hand-in-hand with the hospital makes us more effective.”

The West Campus Urgent Care is open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. The “Save My Spot” feature, which allows patient families to reserve a time slot at the clinic from the comfort of their own home, is live and wait times are also posted on the website so families know how long it will be before they are seen. Electronic check in is also available to expedite the registration process and potentially aid in lowering wait times.

“Our mantra is to ensure that patients are getting the right care, at the right place at the right time, and with us specifically, at the right cost,” said Roula Zoghbi Smith, director of Business Operations for the Urgent Care. “The urgent care is typically a more cost effective option for families, than seeking care in the Emergency Center, which is always appreciated.”

For more information about Texas Children’s Urgent Care and its locations, click here.

On Tuesday, September 25, Texas Children’s No. 1 ranked Heart Center will open in Legacy Tower. To prepare for this historic milestone, multidisciplinary teams recently conducted simulations in the cardiovascular intensive care unit and cardiovascular operating room to test out the new patient care spaces before real patients are seen.

“Today, we are doing systems testing in our cardiovascular intensive care unit,” said Dr. Cara Doughty, medical director of Texas Children’s Simulation Center. “During these simulations, we have a number of different patients both receiving care as well as receiving escalations in care that can happen in the intensive care unit.”

In addition to multidisciplinary staff, patient families from Texas Children’s Family Advisory Committee participated in the CVICU simulations and provided their perspective on how much this space is going to change the way that care is provided to heart patients and their families at Legacy Tower.

“It’s really nice and comforting to me as a parent to see how much thought goes into it,” said Texas Children’s Family Advisory Committee member Christine Hanes. “I know that they aren’t just making a random decision on how to take care of my child. They’re actually testing it and making sure that they follow all the right procedures and that they do everything to optimize their care.”

Following the CVICU simulations, Texas Children’s conducted patient care simulations in the CVOR to test the system, the work flow processes, the placement of surgical equipment, as well as test the communication among multidisciplinary teams to ensure everyone and everything is ready before the first CVOR in Legacy Tower.

“For the CVOR, we had one patient but that patient was going through all of the different aspects of being a patient from registration to preoperative care to arrival to being in the operating room,” Doughty said.

Following each simulation, a one-hour debrief was held where staff from different disciplines came together to discuss what went well and what system processes need to be corrected before actual patients are seen.

“We want to make sure we’re well prepared, that the space is in tip top shape to be able to provide what we need for these critical patients,” said Kerry Sembera, assistant director of clinical practice for the Heart Center.

In preparation for the opening of Texas Children’s No. 1 ranked Heart Center on September 25, a series of systems testing was also conducted last month for acute care cardiology, the Heart Center Clinic and the Cath lab/HCRU.

Employees and staff can see more of Legacy Tower on Connect throughout the month. Texas Children’s Corporate Communications Team will feature a series of stories and videos on Connect promoting the Heart Center and sharing how we are preparing for this historic move into Legacy Tower.