January 10, 2017

11117norbertomontes175Norberto Montes, Medical Technologist for Pathology Department, died December 28, 2016 at the age of 68.

Norberto joined Texas Children’s Hospital Pathology as a Medical Technologist in 2005. He was a “founding” medical technologist in the diagnostic laboratory at the Pavilion for Women since 2012. Bert was dependable, hard-working and good-spirited. He has been a good friend to everyone in the department and will always be remembered and will forever remain in their hearts.

Bert is survived by two children, Michael Montes and wife Jessica, and Michelle Luna and husband, Felix; three granddaughters, Danielle, Alexis and Molly; brother, Reynaldo Montes and wife, Susan; and sister, Paulina Laugo; nephews and niece, Michael, Jun-Jay and Pauline Jaye; and the rest of his relatives and friends.

January 4, 2017

1517mehtadeepakr175Texas Children’s Otolaryngologist Dr. Deepak Mehta was recently named to two important positions in professional otolaryngology organizations.

In December, Mehta was elected president of the Society for Ear, Nose and Throat Advances in Children (SENTAC). The December 2018 meeting of SENTAC will be in Houston, giving Texas Children’s otolaryngologists the chance to introduce our city and hospital to more than 200 colleagues and members of the growing professional society.

Mehta also was named program chair for the 2017 American Society of Pediatric Otolaryngology (ASPO) meeting. One of the primary missions of the professional society is to share and disseminate advances and innovations in patient care through the annual meeting and other venues.

Mehta joined Texas Children’s in 2015 from the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Division of Pediatric Otolaryngology, where he was director of the Aerodigestive Program. He was also associate professor of Otolaryngology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Mehta performed his residency at So. Trent Otolaryngology Programme at Nottingham, UK, and a pediatric otolaryngology fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and Medical Center. Mehta will see patients at the main campus of Texas Children’s and at the Sugar Land Health Center. Mehta has also been appointed associate professor in the Department of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine.

1517muscal175Pediatric Rheumatologist Dr. Eyal Muscal recently served as a co-director for the inaugural International Pediatric Autoimmune Encephalitis Treatment Consensus Meeting.

Held in November at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., this meeting brought together pediatric experts from around North America to work on achieving a number of goals for children with this rare immune condition.

Goals included the standardization of diagnosis, as well as the development of treatment roadmaps, among other topics. Along with meeting co-directors from Duke and DC children’s hospitals Muscal will spearhead the development of consensus treatment plans for autoimmune encephalitides.

Muscal is a pediatric rheumatologist with a Master’s of Science Degree in clinical research whose activities include patient care, fellowship education and clinical research. His research interests include neurologic manifestation of systemic autoimmune disorders (primarily SLE, APS, vasculitis, and autoimmune encephalitis). His interest in immuno-neurology has led to a secondary appointment in the child neurology division at Baylor College of Medicine.

Muscal has received grant funding and research awards for pilot research studies. He is also the pediatric rheumatology program director and recent co-lead of a national pediatric rheumatology mentoring project. Muscal is involved in Texas Children’s Pediatrics Fellows’ College.

December 20, 2016

122116physiciansurveyinside640Texas Children’s shined in a recent survey conducted by the Harris County Medical Society to determine physicians’ perspectives and satisfaction in their relationships with local hospitals. More than 2,000 physicians took the survey, providing results for 30 hospitals in the Greater Houston area.

When asked to rate their overall satisfaction with each of those hospitals, 87 percent rated Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus at the top of their satisfaction list. Texas Children’s Hospital medical center campus was next with 83 percent of physicians giving the hospital high satisfaction marks.

Reputation is another area where the Texas Children’s system stood apart from the rest. When asked how physicians rated the overall reputation of each health system represented in the survey, 91 percent placed Texas Children’s at the helm.

“The results of this survey are incredible and speak to the superb quality of work we do across our entire system each and every day,” said President and CEO Mark A. Wallace. “They also are a testament to the relationships we have built and continue to strengthen with physicians in Houston and beyond.”

The purpose of the survey, according to Harris County Medical Society President Dr. Kimberly Monday, is to identify areas of strength and areas of opportunity for improvement in physician/hospital relationships that will create the opportunity for further discussion and will ultimately enhance collective efforts to improve patient care in the Houston area.

“These results will give physicians and hospital leaders a clear picture of the areas where the most work needs to be done,” Monday said. “These issues are too important to the quality of care we deliver to our patients to be dismissed, and we want to show hospital administrators that physicians are eager to work with them to make meaningful improvements to hospital practices and policies.”

Monday added that the impetus for the study was the decision on behalf of the federal government to tie Medicare payments to long-term patient outcomes instead of process. As physicians and hospitals become financially tied to actual outcomes, she said, doctors must know which hospitals provide a culture of quality and safety.

Conducted from May 8 to June 20, the Harris County Medical Society survey asked questions regarding:

  • Safety of medical care
  • Relationships between hospital administration and physicians
  • Hospital policies affecting care
  • Medical staff issues and bylaws
  • Electronic medical records

Texas Children’s system, Texas Children’s Hospital and Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus led several categories in the survey as well and made the top 5 or top 10 list in many others, including leadership and leadership training opportunities, adequate nursing staff and quality of support staff.

“It’s good to hear our partnering physicians view us in such a positive light,” said Matt Schaefer, West Campus president. “Those relationships are extremely important to what we do, which is ensuring the best medical care to our patients and their families.”

Click the links below to view the results of the survey:

2016 Harris County Medical Society physician survey – Texas Children’s Hospital
2016 Harris County Medical Society physician survey – Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus
2016 Harris County Medical Society physician satisfaction survey

The Texas Children’s family will always hold a special place in its collective heart for the staff, employees and Board of Trustee member we lost this year. Each will be greatly missed.

122116ssluisrauda175Luis Rauda, October 2016 Employee

Luis Rauda of The Center for children and Women – Greenspoint, is the latest Texas Children’s Super Star employee. “What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” Read more of his interview below and find out how you can nominate a Super Star.
Your name, title and department. How long have you worked here?
Luis Rauda, Medical Assistant for the Pediatrics Team. I’ve been with Texas Children’s for about two years. (I was hired in February 2014)

What month are you Super Star for?
October 2016

Tell us how you found out you won a super star award.
My colleagues surprised me, and I was terrified.

What does it mean to be recognized for the hard work you do? How has the organization helped you achieve your personal and professional goals?
A person who feels appreciated will always do more than what is expected. With that being said, I always feel appreciated by my family at The Texas Children’s Center.
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals. Overall, this organization has not only helped me achieve personal and professional goals, it also has molded me into the person I am today.

What do you think makes someone at Texas Children’s a super star?
Personal Initiative – A person with personal initiative is self-starting and proactive; works independently of outside influence or control. This also can be applied in Teamwork.

What is your motivation for going above and beyond every day at work?
Self value and quality. The quality of an individual is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.

What is the best thing about working at Texas Children’s?
Texas Children’s is a place where one can self-improve endlessly, both professionally and personally.

What does it mean to you that everyone at Texas Children’s is considered a leader? What is your leadership definition?
True Leaders don’t create followers… they create more leaders. What better way to lead than to lead by example?

Anything else you want to share?
I’m not quite sure how I got picked to be a super star, but I believe that my entire family at The Center for Children and Women (Greenspoint and Southwest Location) are all super stars as well. Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to reach “super star status.” They allow me to be my best self and reach my full potential on a daily basis. For that reason, they also should be recognized. Please and thank you.

December 13, 2016

121416perfusionists640When a child has open heart surgery at Texas Children’s Hospital, they receive some of the best care in the country. Our Heart Center, ranked No. 2 in the nation, is equipped with state-of-the art technology, highly trained and skilled surgeons and anesthesiologists, as well as a team of unsung heroes called perfusionists.

Perfusionists operate the heart lung bypass machine needed to keep a patient alive during open heart surgery. The machine takes deoxygenated blood out of a patient’s body, runs it through an artificial lung to give it oxygen, and then pumps it back into the patient’s blood stream.

While the idea may sound simple, the procedure and process is not and is performed at the Heart Center by a longstanding team of experienced and professional perfusionists.

“Perfusionists are absolutely vital when we perform open heart surgery,” said Surgeon-in-Chief Dr. Charles D. Fraser Jr. “What they do is extraordinary and allows us to do very complicated operations on children who otherwise would not be able to survive.”

Fraser recognized the benefit of a strong perfusion team early on and is responsible for creating a dedicated pediatric team at Texas Children’s in 1995 shortly after being named chief of Congenital Heart Surgery. All three members of the original team – Mary Claire McGarry, Maryann Mueller and Deb Surprise – are still working in the Cardiovascular Operating rooms today and remember what it was like in the beginning.

Mueller remembered Fraser recruited her and her colleagues from the Texas Heart Institute where they worked with both adult and pediatric patients. The first few years at Texas Children’s, she said, were spent honing their skills to provide the best perfusion for children.

Surprise recalled how Fraser brought with him a new approach to pediatric perfusion. His idea was to create a specialized pediatric protocol that would be tailored to each individual child.

“Everyone was invested in the success of Dr. Fraser and what he was trying to accomplish,” Mueller said. “We wanted him to be successful – and for our patients to come in, have surgery and then head home to lead healthy lives.”

Over time the team grew to what it is today, eight perfusionists who work closely with the surgical team. Due to their ever evolving skill levels, the team continues to see more complex patients, many of whom have benefited from the hard work of the surgeons and clinical staff at Texas Children’s Heart Center.

Fraser and his team recently performed their 10,000th heart procedure with the use of heart lung bypass on Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program patient 31-year-old Stephanie Granger, who was born with a congenital heart defect and had two surgeries as a baby and another when she was 6. Years later, she developed secondary problems from her heart defect.

“I started having some abdomen pain, so I went to my primary doctor,” Granger said. “They ran a CT scan and found there was a problem with my liver due to my heart.”

Soon thereafter, Granger scheduled heart surgery at Texas Children’s not only for herself but for her newly adopted daughter, Zoey, as well. Zoey was born with a similar congenital heart defect and needed surgery just like her mother.

“When we adopted her, we told them we were open to various conditions,” Granger said. “We told them we had a family history of congenital heart disease and that we fully understood it.”

McGarry said she can’t believe the team just reached the 10,000 pump case milestone and that it’s a testament to how far they’ve come.

“People now from all over the world come to see what we do,” she said. “It’s amazing and makes me very proud to have been a part of the program for so long.”