October 24, 2017

Heather Eppelheimer is a child life specialist with Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. While she is quick to offer support in any way she can, Heather’s primary responsibility is to work closely with expecting families who have lost a child.

Heather helps these families cope with their loss and create lasting memories of their child. She offers the same type of support to her colleagues who might be going through a stressful time, consistently rising above and beyond as a supportive teammate.

“Heather has become a staple of support and mentorship for our Child Life Department,” said Saraben Turner, a child life manager. “She approaches each day with a mission to provide optimal, compassionate care to her patients and families, while also ensuring that her colleagues and teammates are feeling supported in the exceptional work they do.”

“She truly exemplifies living compassionately and amplifying unity in her every day work,” Turner continued. “She is continually provided with Caught You Caring awards and other recognitions highlighting the strong work she provides to patients and their families, her team and Texas Children’s Hospital.”

Launched in 2015, Texas Children’s Caught You Caring program is a systemwide program that recognizes employees for going above and beyond to provide compassion and kindness in the care of a patient, family or co-worker. Recently, Epplelheimer was among more than a dozen employees who received a pair of tickets to watch the Houston Texans Play 60 game on October 1, after being recognized for his acts of kindness through this program.

Texas Children’s wants to continue to recognize those who take great pride in the work they do and encourages patients, families and employees to catch someone who is making a difference.

To nominate a colleague, Caught You Caring boxes and cards can be found across the Texas Children’s hospital system for patients and families to fill out. Employees can fill out a Caught You Caring form on Connect. Cards and online submissions will be distributed to leaders for staff recognition.

For the next three weeks, Connect will feature a series of Caught You Caring videos spotlighting several of our employees who have gone above and beyond their role in the care of our patients and their families.

October 17, 2017

For the twelfth consecutive year, Texas Children’s Hospital has been ranked by the Houston Business Journal as one of the Best Places to Work in Houston. This year Texas Children’s ranked No. 3 among companies employing more than 1,000 employees!

“This ranking is a result of employees’ transparent feedback about life at Texas Children’s, and with what I witness on a daily basis, I’m not surprised we landed among the city’s top employers,” said Texas Children’s President and CEO Mark A. Wallace. “We are one amazing team!”

The Houston Business Journal held an awards luncheon October 12 at the Marriott Marquis to present the 17th annual Best Places to Work awards and celebrate all 104 companies that made the cut.

The award recognizes companies in the Houston area with the most satisfied employees and are compiled by Quantum Workplace, which sent a survey to employees of nominated companies. Quantum then comes up with scores based on corporate culture, amenities, benefits, and worker retention and attraction strategies. Companies are ranked by that score in four categories based on company size.

“One thing I enjoy most about Texas Children’s is meeting the families, and having a positive interaction with the patients and the families as a whole,” said Keith Thomas, an ambulatory services representative at Texas Children’s Autism Center and a 2017 Caught You Caring Award recipient.

When Jennifer Evans interviewed Keith nearly two years ago, she knew right away that she wanted him to be part of her team at the Autism Center. From the moment Keith walked into the office, he has improved the whole dynamic of everything at the front desk.

“Keith is the first person that patients and families see when they come into our office,” said Evans who nominated Keith for the Caught You Caring award. “He is a very genuine person, and makes everyone feel comfortable and welcome whether they are a patient, staff member or provider.”

“Keith gives every family the individual attention that they deserve, and that’s what makes such a big difference,” said Ambulatory Service Representative Yvette Gonzales. “He is always going above and beyond for the patients and parents. He is wonderful and definitely deserving of the Caught You Caring award.”

Launched in 2015, Texas Children’s Caught You Caring program is a systemwide program that recognizes employees for going above and beyond to provide compassion and kindness in the care of a patient, family or co-worker. Recently, Keith was among more than a dozen employees who received a pair of tickets to watch the Houston Texans Play 60 game on October 1, after being recognized for his acts of kindness through this program.

Texas Children’s wants to continue to recognize those who take great pride in the work they do and encourages patients, families and employees to catch someone who is making a difference.

To nominate a colleague, Caught You Caring boxes and cards can be found across the Texas Children’s hospital system for patients and families to fill out. Employees can fill out a Caught You Caring form on Connect. Cards and online submissions will be distributed to leaders for staff recognition.

For the next four weeks, Connect will feature a series of Caught You Caring videos spotlighting several of our employees who have gone above and beyond their role in the care of our patients and their families.

Kristen Marie Hersey, RN, Women’s Services, passed away on July 30, 2017 at the age of 33.

Kristen was a member of the inpatient Women’s Services Labor & Delivery Team. Kristen dedicated her life to helping others and was always willing to help even when exhausted. Kristen loved her job! She considered being a nurse more of a calling than a job. Kristen cherished being able to help others bring life into the world and had a pure joy for every baby born. Kristen cared for so many people and made friends wherever she went. Kristen loved her children more than anything, and taught them to pray and thank God for all of our gifts and made sure they knew how much they are loved. Kristen was a friend to all, her loving personality, giving spirit, listening ear, and that smile that could light up the unit will be greatly missed by her team and fellow employees.

Kristen is survived by her loving husband, Shawn; children, Isla and Rowan; mother, Lisa; father, James; stepfather, Mark; Mother- and Father-in-law, Tammie and Gary; sisters, Trina Ouztz (husband, Matt) and Alli Combs (husband Drew); Sister-in-law, Kati; nieces and nephews, Emma, Liam, Eli, Lily Anne, William, Grady, Layton, Allison, Austin, Abigail; and many other loving family and friends.

October 10, 2017

Dr. Hsiao-Tuan Chao received the 2017 Outstanding Junior Member Award from the Child Neurology Society for her discovery of the genetic cause of a neurodevelopmental condition known as the Hypotonia Ataxia and Developmental Disorder Syndrome.

Chao is the clinical instructor in pediatric neurology at Baylor College of Medicine and physician-scientist at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute (NRI) at Texas Children’s in the laboratory of Dr. Hugo J. Bellen.

Through large-scale collaborative efforts with the Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) and Baylor Genetics Laboratory (BGL), Chao’s research studies revealed the pathogenic role of damaging genetic changes in Early B-Cell Factor 3 (EBF3) in neurodevelopment and cognition. Her research continues to focus on elucidating the role of EBF3 dysfunction and transcriptional dysregulation of neural circuits in highly prevalent childhood disorders such as intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder.

Dr. Davut Pehlivan, a medical resident in pediatric neurology and physician-scientist at Baylor College of Medicine in the laboratory of Dr. James Lupski, is the recipient of the 2017 M. Richard KoenigsBerger Scholarship Award from the Child Neurology Society for his studies related to arthrogryposis patients.

Pehlivan analyzed 108 arthrogryposis families using whole exam sequencing approach as part of Baylor-Hopkins Center for Mendelian Genomics initiative. His studies made important contributions to understanding the disease pathogenesis by showing evidence for oligogenic inheritance in arthrogryposis and yielded several novel genes causing arthrogryposis.

The Child Neurology Society established this scholarship award in 2013 to honor the memory of . The awardee is selected between CNS Junior Members/residents submitting the best abstract in the areas of neonatal neurology, genetic diseases, HIV or metabolic disorders.

Texas Children’s collaborative work to develop a novel device to anchor the chorio-amniotic membranes during fetal surgery was recently funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute Of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Partnering with Baylor College of Medicine, the Department of Bioengineering at Texas A&M University, and local life sciences commercialization firm Fannin Innovation Studio, the $225,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant will be used to advance the development of a device that can be introduced into the uterine cavity under ultrasound guidance to anchor the chorio-amniotic membranes, thereby reducing the risk for premature rupture of membranes (PROM) during fetal surgery.

Preterm PROM is the most frequent complication associated with fetal surgery and can increase the risk of premature delivery that could potentially add the insult or prematurity to the fetal anomaly that leads to the need for fetal surgery.

Through the Texas A&M undergraduate and graduate design program, a group of Texas A&M engineering students collaborated with Dr. Jimmy Espinoza and OB/Gyn-in-Chief Dr. Michael A. Belfort, obstetricians and gynecologists, and fetal surgeons at Texas Children’s and Baylor, to create the device in 2016. Espinoza and Belfort challenged the students to develop innovative tools that could be percutaneously introduced into the uterus during fetal surgery to anchor the chorio-amniotic membranes in order to reduce the risk of preterm PROM.

Fetal surgery is a relatively new discipline that aims to reduce the risk for fetal death in conditions such as twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, severe fetal anemia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia or fetal hydrops, or reduce the long term complications and improve the quality of life in conditions such as spina bifida. Texas Children’s and Baylor are at the forefront on fetal surgery in the U.S. and have innovated techniques to make fetal surgery safer for the mothers and their unborn children.

After extensively collaborating with Texas Children’s surgeons to understand the challenges of anchoring the chorio-amniotic membranes during fetal surgery and the need for refinement, the collaborative team developed a device that can be percutaneously introduced into the uterine cavity under ultrasound guidance in order to anchor the chorio-amniotic membranes to reduce the risk for preterm PROM. This new innovation in fetal surgery could potentially be used in all fetal surgeries because of its percutaneous approach and should reduce the risk for the most common complication associated with fetal surgery, namely pre-term PROM.

“The development of new devices and new approaches in fetal surgery is very important to make fetal interventions safer not only for the fetus but also for the mother,” said Espinoza, co-director of the Fetal Center at Texas Children’s. “The decision to proceed to fetal surgery is very altruistic for the mothers because they will be exposed to risks associated with surgery for the benefit of their unborn child. Thus, we have the obligation to minimize those risks. This award recognizes the academic partnerships that are necessary to advance the frontiers of fetal surgery.”

The team’s invention has won the top prize at Texas A&M University’s 2016 annual Engineering Design Showcase. The project was judged against over 700 students on more than 150 other projects.

Texas Children’s patients and families got the chance to visit NBC’s Sunday Night Football Bus October 6 ahead of the Houston Texans game against the Kansas City Chiefs.

The bus included a player wall where children and adults could compare themselves to a real NFL player, a replica news desk for photo ops, Player of the Game balls signed by the players of each week’s game, the Super Bowl trophy and more.

TORO was on hand for the excitement, posing for photos and signing autographs.