May 3, 2017

As a health care system, Texas Children’s believes that a critical component to offering outstanding clinical care is measuring the results of the care we deliver and doing our best to provide our patients and families with the safest environment possible.

“By tracking what we do, we learn about what happens to our patients, and we also learn about our performance as a health care delivery organization,” said Chief Safety Officer Dr. Joan Shook. “We know we can always do better and must continue to strive toward excellence in health care delivery.”

With that in mind, Texas Children’s has created a dedicated safety and outcomes website that parents can access directly from the Texas Children’s main landing page. The information on this page is organized into the following nationally recognized categories of quality measures:

  • Safe: Avoiding harm to patients from the care that is intended to help them.
  • Effective: Providing services based on scientific knowledge. This category also measures the outcomes of the care we provide.
  • Patient-centered: Providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient preferences, needs and values and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.
  • Timely: Reducing wait times and harmful delays for both those who receive and those who give care.
  • Efficient: Avoiding waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas and energy.

When possible, the website shows how Texas Children’s compares to other children’s hospitals in the United States in these categories. Where no good comparisons are available, the website illustrates how Texas Children’s compares to our own performance in the past, and how we measure up to our own goals.

Some of the topics and data reported include: hand-hygiene compliance, catheter associated blood stream infections, surgical site infections, death and complications within 30 days of surgery, patient experience, third next available appointment, patients leaving emergency care and transfer denials. Additional measures will be added over time.

For each measure, information is provided that lays out what parents can do to help Texas Children’s deliver the highest quality pediatric care. The website also includes links to our health system’s evidence-based guidelines. A distinctive feature of the website is an email address for readers who want to provide input on what additional information they would like to know and ways we can improve our website.

“We invite you to check out how we are doing and to share our outcomes with patients and their families,” Shook said. “We believe our patients and families deserve the most complete and accurate information possible about how we are doing as a health care system.”

Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women also has launched a safety and outcomes website. Click here for more information.

April 25, 2017

In 2012, we first met the Perkins sextuplets on Connect when they were born 10 weeks premature at Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. Today, these babies aren’t so little anymore. On April 23, Andrew, Benjamin, Caroline, Allison, Levi and Leah celebrated their fifth birthday.

“Part of me can’t believe we made it this far,” Lauren Perkins said. “I remember when they were little babies dreaming of this time. If I can make it until they are four or five and we’ll be past all these bottles and the potty training and the diapers, then we’ll know we’re good. We definitely survived the little years.”

For Lauren and her husband Dave, every day is a busy day in the Perkins home, especially when you have to keep up with six energetic five year olds who will start Kindergarten in the fall. Leah, who stayed at Texas Children’s neonatal intensive care unit much longer than her siblings, already attends a special school for children with developmental and physical disabilities.

So, what is a typical day like in the Perkins home? Recently, we visited the family to find out and to see how much their babies have grown over the last five years.

Referred to as the Perkins Pack – Texas’ first surviving set of sextuplets – a typical day includes preschool class three days a week, swim, soccer and dance classes. While they love to listen to music, watch TV and play outside, they also enjoy helping their mom cook. The sextuplets also have plenty of chores to do around the house like making their beds and picking up their toys. They are at an age where they all enjoy playing together.

“It’s definitely a lot of teamwork for me and my husband,” Perkins said. “I take care of them during the day, and when Dave gets home from work in the evening, he prepares dinner, gives them baths, and is very involved in their day-to-day lives including being an assistant coach on their little soccer team.”

The Perkins never imagined that they would be blessed with six beautiful babies. After struggling with infertility, the couple decided to try one round of intra-uterine insemination and ovulatory stimulating drugs to conceive what they hoped would be their first child.

“It’s pretty crazy that I carried six babies at once and they’re all here and we’re all good,” Perkins said. “It’s a miracle and a true testament of what God can do.”

The Bad Pants Open, an annual golf tournament raising funds for the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Texas Children’s Hospital, celebrated an exciting milestone recently with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the new, 14-bed NICU at Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands.

A $1 million donation from The Bad Pants Open was the catalyst for the NICU at Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands, which will care for premature and critically-ill babies, closer to home for residents of The Woodlands.

During the ribbon-cutting event, members of The Bad Pants Open committee had the honor of meeting the first patients of the Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands NICU, twins Emma and Lillian and their mother, Rebecca Vadala.

One of Houston’s most colorful golf tournaments, The Bad Pants Open is celebrating 20 years of raising critical funds, totaling over $6 million, to support needs of premature and sick newborn babies and their families at Texas Children’s Hospital. Presented by RBC Wealth Management and Capital Markets, this light-hearted annual golf tournament at The Clubs of Kingwood on Thursday, October 12, is chaired by Vice President of Texas Aromatics Rob Cooksey.

Texas Children’s Hospital, together with Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women, house the nation’s largest level IV NICU, caring for more than 2,500 infants each year. The NICU at Texas Children’s provides all services that critically-ill or premature babies might need, including on-site neonatologists available 24/7, the highest level of respiratory support, advanced imaging, pediatric surgery, pediatric anesthesiology and more.

April 18, 2017

On April 10, more than 600 guests attended the Forum Luncheon at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Houston to meet internationally renowned neurogeneticist Dr. Huda Zoghbi and learn about the remarkable breakthroughs being made at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) at Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine.

President and CEO Mark A. Wallace delivered opening remarks including a video documenting the unfolding story of the NRI and how Texas Children’s bold vision of establishing the world’s first basic research institute dedicated to the study of childhood neurological diseases became reality as a result of the hospital’s incredible leadership which he describes as Texas Children’s “secret sauce.”

ABC 13 Anchor Melanie Lawson moderated the one-hour long Q-and-A discussion with Zoghbi, director of the NRI. In addition to learning about Zoghbi’s early career before making the transition to neuroscience research, Zoghbi shared her collaborative vision for the NRI and spotlighted some of the exciting new discoveries emerging from the numerous labs at the NRI.

“To understand a disease, you have to know the root cause,” Zoghbi said. “Once you know the root cause, you can then create an animal model of the disease, dive into the mechanism and find an entry to a therapeutic manipulation. Genetics is one way to find the root cause of disease.”

Since the NRI opened in 2010, Zoghbi highlighted several recent discoveries that have opened new doors for developing therapeutic targets for various neurological diseases:

  • Dr. Benjamin Arenkiel found a small group of cells in the basal forebrain play a major role in the control of appetite. In mouse studies, when these cells are manipulated a certain way, the animal either eats constantly and becomes obese or eats little and loses weight. Arenkiel’s discovery paves the way for developing new therapies to treat obesity and other eating disorders in children and adults.
  • In collaboration with Drs. Juan Botas and Zhandong Liu, NRI researchers have identified a potential new strategy to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. They found that an over accumulation of the protein tau can make the brain vulnerable to degeneration. By developing new drugs to keep tau at levels that are not toxic, this could either prevent or delay the development of Alzheimer’s and other degenerative diseases caused by toxic tau accumulation.
  • Drs. Andrea Ballabio and Marco Sardiello discovered the function of a gene called Transcription Factor EB that helps cells clear up accumulated proteins, which is important for nerve cells to survive. Based on this scientific breakthrough, new clinical trials are underway that will help slow down or stop the progression of disease in patients with Batten disease by improving the clearing function of the brain.
  • Drs. John Swann, Anne Anderson and their team found that there are many molecular and biochemical changes that drive the growth and over-activity of brain cells in epilepsy patients. They were able to define a way to treat these seizures based on biochemical studies in cancer, which has helped to eliminate uncontrollable seizures in children.
    The NRI Forum Luncheon also included inspirational stories from several patient families who were present at the event, and who have benefitted from the life-altering research emerging from the NRI to improve the outcomes and quality of life for patients with a myriad of neurological disorders.

Prior to this event, Texas Children’s Development also hosted a reception to unveil a photography exhibit by Karen Sachar honoring the special needs children in the Greater Houston community. The reception included a short presentation from NRI researcher Dr. Christian Schaaf.

Click here to watch the video of the entire Luncheon Forum program.

Click here to watch specific patient story videos that were featured at the event.

April 4, 2017

Each year, the Denton A. Cooley Lectureship in Surgical Innovation honors the inventiveness, originality and vision of Cooley, one of the first surgeons at Texas Children’s Hospital and an international surgical icon and pioneer. The lecture on March 24 about the science of facial transplantation was the first lecture to be held after Cooley’s death in November 2016.

The 2017 Cooley lecturer was Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez, the Helen L. Kimmel Professor of Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Chair of the Department of Plastic Surgery at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine and NYU Langone Medical Center. His lecture was titled “New Face, New Beginning: Reconstruction to Transplantation” and is available online.

Rodriguez, who is a plastic surgeon and dentist, took audience members through the history of facial reconstruction emphasizing improvements in plastic surgery, microsurgery, skin grafting, and bone and tissue transfer. He also shared his experience performing two successful face transplants and what he learned about the surgical transplantation process, organ procurement, organ rejection and many other aspects of the transplant process.

In August 2015, Rodriguez led a team of physicians at NYU in performing the most extensive successful face transplant completed to date. The recipient has continued the path to an excellent recovery and has shown no signs of rejection.

This success was due, in part, by the learning experience of the first face transplant he and his team completed in March 2012 at the University of Maryland Medical Center. This patient has experienced many life-threatening rejection episodes requiring immediate intervention.

“Dr. Cooley would have been so energized by this lecture and learning about the work Dr. Rodriguez is doing,” said Dr. Charles D. Fraser, Jr., surgeon-in-chief at Texas Children’s Hospital. “I hope everyone who attended the lecture and views it online and is inspired to innovate in every way possible.”

Texas Children’s Marketing team created a beautifully designed website commemorating the five-year anniversary of the opening of Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women.

A few months prior to the hospital’s 5-year milestone, the Marketing team – Internal Communications, Public Relations and Web – collaborated with the Pavilion for Women Administration team to develop the content for the website.

Click here to visit the new website.

“To celebrate the hospital’s first-year anniversary, we featured Molly Struzik posing with her first birthday cake,” Marketing Specialist Emily Lamport said. “Leveraging on this concept, we decided to feature Molly again to show just how much she has grown in five years to parallel the 5-year growth and success achieved at the Pavilion for Women.”

The 5-year anniversary website contains other commemorative elements:

  • Five-year timeline spotlighting Pavilion for Women key milestones
  • By the Numbers
  • Photo gallery
  • Video reflections of what the Pavilion for Women means today

The successful completion of this project would not have been possible without the collaboration from our talented Creative Services team, who meticulously designed the website, and our photographers who provided the compelling imagery for the website.

“As part of our Pavilion for Women 5-year anniversary marketing campaign, we used multiple vehicles to drive traffic to the website including print ads and social media posts,” said Lisa Yelenick, director of Service Line, Community and Brand Marketing.

The Baylor College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics and Texas Children’s Hospital hosted the 2017 Pediatric Fellows’ Research Symposium on March 21 at the Pavilion for Women Conference Center.

Dr. Huda Zoghbi, director of the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute, provided the keynote research presentation, “Protein Levels and Neurological Diseases: Insights and Opportunities.” Besides advancing our understanding of the genetic causes of spinocerebellar ataxia and Rett syndrome, she has been instrumental in other important neurological medical breakthroughs including her recent discovery of how lowering toxic levels of tau in the brain could potentially lead to new therapies to reverse or prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Will Parsons, director for the Center for Precision Oncology at Texas Children’s Cancer Center, followed with the keynote scholarship presentation, “Precision Oncology: Deconvoluting One Trainee’s Path from the Bench to the Clinic.”

This year’s research symposium included more than 135 poster presentations from pediatric fellows and included an awards presentation featuring the top four abstracts submitted this year:

  • Bile duct ligation induces ATZ globule clearance in a mouse model Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency

Dr. Zahida Khan

  • Respiratory severity score on day of life 15 is higher in premature infants requiring mechanical ventilation at day of life 60

Dr. Matthew Maruna

  • Pharmacogenomic association with neurotoxicity in Hispanic children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)

Dr. Claire McClain

  • Inflammatory regulation promotes angiogenesis in chronic renal diseases models

Dr. Xinyi Wang

A fellows’ workshop session was offered as well. Dr. Eric Williams, associate professor of Critical Care at Baylor and Texas Children’s chief medical information officer, led the session on Innovation.

The symposium is an important forum for sharing research results and achievements, as well as for networking and establishing new collaborations. The symposium provides a venue to address topics that may be relevant to the trainee’s career development as they transition to more advanced or faculty positions.