On his blog this week, Mark Wallace honors American Heart Month by talking about the amazing strides Texas Children’s has made in caring for children’s hearts. He also highlights our Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program and explains why it’s so important to the continued success of our top-ranked Heart Center. Read more
Chief Nursing Officer Mary Jo Andre hosted her seventh virtual town hall. In her blog, she provides a link to the town hall recording and highlights the exciting progress our nurses have made towards achieving the department’s strategic goals. Read more
Employees, patients and members of Texas Children’s entities are encouraged to take the 2020 Census. The effort to educate us is being led by The Section of Public Health Pediatrics and Community Benefits at Texas Children’s Hospital.
“Every 10 years, the census counts how many people live in each community to decide how much funding and representation in congress each community should receive,” said Cassie Jones, community initiatives coordinator. “An accurate census count means more programs and services will be available to the children and families we serve to support their full health and well-being.”
This funding supports everything from disaster recovery to higher education to road improvements to Medicaid funding.
“Texas Children’s is uniquely situated to reach hundreds of thousands of families and encourage them to complete the census,” Jones added.
She goes on to say that children under the age of five and low-income populations are often undercounted in the Census and it is estimated that communities miss out on $10,000 in funding for every person that is not counted. If children reside in more than one home, they should be counted where they stay most often, even if their parents don’t live there. If there is any confusion, children should be counted where they will be staying on Census Day – April 1st, 2020. For newborn babies still in the hospital on April 1, 2020, they should be counted at the home where they will live and sleep most of the time.
There are only nine questions and your responses cannot be shared with anyone. Every household in the United States should complete the census regardless of citizenship or immigration status. There are no questions about citizenship. For more information go to 2020 CENSUS.
Secure Internet: For the first time this year, the Census will be available online.
Respond by phone: Beginning March 1, 2020 the Census phone lines will be available at 1-800-923-8282.
Respond by mail: From March 12, 2020 through March 20, 2020 every home will receive an invitation in the mail to complete the Census. This information will explain how to complete the Census to help ensure our community receives the funding we need to help our patients, families, and community thrive!
In-Person interview: United States Census Bureau enumerators will visit residences that choose not to self-respond.
Lines are open from 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. CST seven days per week.
English (1-844-330-2020) and Spanish (1-844-468-2020).
If you service communities with different language needs, please check out the language specific phone lines at: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/2020-census/planning-management/memo-series/2020-memo-2019_18.html
On his blog this week, Mark Wallace shares why the Oscars is such a clear reminder of why we still have work to do to advance diversity and inclusion. Read more
Norma Terrazas shares her experiences since the Abercrombie move to 15 West Tower three months ago, and has a special message for her colleagues in Abercrombie who will move to their new unit on 7 West Tower next month. Read more
In celebration of Valentine’s Day, two employees share how their love story unfolded at Texas Children’s. If you have a love story to share, submit your video by midnight on February 14.
Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine pediatric ophthalmologist Dr. Evelyn Paysse and Baylor College of Medicine refractive surgery specialist Dr. Mitchell Weikert have spent nearly two decades giving children with certain eye conditions hope of better vision.
The work they are doing focuses on children with amblyopia, a condition that if left untreated can lead to permanent vision loss.
“Amblyopia is a condition where the vision, in either one eye or both eyes, does not develop normally,” Weikert said. “If one eye has a lot more need for glasses, the brain may ignore that eye, and focus on the eye that’s creating a clearer image. If that happens, and it’s not discovered, or isn’t treated optimally, a child may never develop the vision they could have had in that eye and might end up with what we call a lazy eye, or amblyopia.”
The solution Paysse and Weikert are offering to patients who have not had success with traditional therapies such as wearing glasses or contacts, and patching the better-seeing eye, is a procedure called photorefractive keratectomy or PRK.
“Photo refractive keratectomy is a surface ablation of the cornea using an excimer laser,” Paysse said. “The laser shaves away, or somewhat sculpts, the cornea, taking away a certain amount of it to reduce the refractive error.”
The desired outcome of PRK is that the child’s refractive disorder will be improved or corrected and that their brain will then be able to better develop the vision in the weaker eye. Thus far, the majority of the more than 180 patients Paysse and Weikert have operated on have had excellent results.
“We find that the patients respond better if they are treated at a younger age,” Paysse said. “The reason is that amblyopia is a time-sensitive problem that you really must treat before the patient is visually mature in the brain.”
One patient who had success with PRK is 8-year-old Lila McLaughlin. Lila was born three months early with a myriad of vision problems that eventually led her and her mother, Laura, to Paysse, who performed PRK surgery on Lila just before her second birthday. The surgery, and a subsequent procedure, changed Lila’s life.
“She went into surgery and came back with what I say was a new set of eyes,” said Lila’s mother, Laura McLaughlin said.
Prior to PRK surgery, Lila’s vision was deteriorating quickly causing the toddler to become legally blind in one of her eyes. After undergoing PRK, Lila could see almost perfectly.
“This surgery has given her a healthy outcome,” Laura McLaughlin said. “Lila has blossomed into a phenomenal, fun-loving, feisty firecracker of a third grader.”
Lila herself is extremely thankful for the care she received from Paysse and others at Texas Children’s who have participated in her care.
“She’s a really great doctor,” Lila said. “She successfully helped me see way better than I used to.”
Currently, PRK surgery is not approved by the Federal Drug Administration in children. All the patients Paysse and Weikert have treated are part of a study led by the Institutional Review Board of Baylor College of Medicine, a consortium of committees that checks doctors’ protocols making sure they are designed safely.