December 12, 2018 | (21) Comments

Last year, Dignity Health and Catholic Health Initiatives announced plans to merge their operations, and a few months ago, Baylor Scott & White Health announced its intent to merge with Memorial Hermann Health System.

These mergers will consolidate four sizeable systems into behemoth operations, and that seems to be a trend. In the last 18 months alone, there have been 197 health care merger and acquisition transactions announced. So it stands to reason that faculty and employees here might wonder, “Is Texas Children’s considering merging with another health system?”

The firm and resolute response to that is, “No.” Texas Children’s has no plans to merge with another system. Here’s why:

We care about our people. Remaining committed to Texas Children’s mission is just as important for our staff and employees as it is for our patients and their families. One of the most significant impacts, when systems merge, is the dilution of culture, and we will not sacrifice our culture or the people who have nurtured it. Texas Children’s is who we are because of who you are. We take immense pride in the culture of excellence and passion for patient care that we all share. It is the hallmark that distinguishes us. I simply cannot imagine Texas Children’s with a leadership team operating the organization for our people from a remote location in another state. Our leadership team is here, engaging and working with you to make decisions that directly impact you and our patients and families. That is our vision for our future.

We’re growing the right way. When you see nearly 200 health care mergers and acquisitions in less than two years, it’s hard to ignore. Some health care systems are growing tremendously. Some need financial stability, and others are simply expanding market share. That’s why growth continues to be important to Texas Children’s. We know market share matters. Size matters. But the way Texas Children’s grows matters to us most. We’re growing aggressively, but we’re thoughtful about our expansion – it is always aligned with our mission to advance patient care, education and research for children and women.

We’re staying focused. Texas Children’s Hospital was founded to care for children. And when we expanded our scope to include women’s services, this was a natural evolution that allowed us to create even healthier futures for children by first taking care of women who would someday become mothers. We now care for women at every stage of life and for children before they are even born. At nearly 65, Texas Children’s is the youngest of the nation’s top children’s hospitals, yet we are leading advancements in medicine for children and women around the world. We have built Texas Children’s as a system intently and passionately focused every single day on advancing and advocating for the health and well-being of children and women. We will not veer from that. Our ability to provide this focused continuum of care is in the best interest of families who seek our expertise and consistently experience exceptional outcomes because of it.

We’ve never been better. Texas Children’s just closed a phenomenal fiscal year … again. We opened the Lester and Sue Smith Legacy Tower, expanded our business to Austin, we’re financially strong, and we’re ranked among the top four children’s hospitals in the U.S. These are just a few highlights of an impressive year, and this year is like so many others we experience at Texas Children’s, time and again. Our capacity to invest in state-of-the-art facilities and continue to expand so that we can provide care in the right place at the right time for our patients speaks to our strategic vision and sturdiness, our ability to respond to the ever-increasing demand for our services and to the exceptional care we provide.

When we say we are one amazing team, we mean that. We have one mission here, one focus and, as a single, cohesive team, we are all moving toward a single destiny for Texas Children’s. Together, we are defining our tomorrow and pouring our passion, best ideas and energy into a promising, sustainable future for us and our patients for decades to come.

December 4, 2018 | (16) Comments

When I came to Texas Children’s Hospital 29 years ago, our mission was and always has been to ensure every child in our community and beyond has easy access to health care.

Last week, a study from Georgetown University Health Policy Institute challenged that. The study found that for the first time in nearly a decade, the number of uninsured children in the United States is increasing. Even more concerning, Texas now leads the nation with the largest percentage of children without medical health coverage. This is an unacceptable and alarming trend, and I know we are better than this study would have us believe.

We are the state that took the first man to the moon, the state leading our country into energy independence, the community that rallied its resources and demonstrated to the world what courage and humanity mean after Hurricane Harvey. We are home to an impressive number of Nobel laureates. Yet, we struggle with insuring all children with health coverage. We can and must do better.

In a state with so many resources, a strong economy and so many health coverage options available, families should not be uninsured. Children should not have to rely on a patchwork of emergency services to bridge them from one illness or injury to the next. Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) provide essential health care to children of working families. And I’m proud that at Texas Children’s, we were so committed to increasing access and coverage for children that we created Texas Children’s Health Plan more than 20 years ago.

That commitment is even stronger today. We now cover more than 440,000 children across Texas enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP. We created the nation’s largest pediatric primary care network, and we partner with local organizations at outreach events to increase the number of children and pregnant women with health care coverage.

We also dedicate time and resources to lobby legislators in Austin and Washington and advocate on behalf of our patients and families. This isn’t politics – our aim is to keep CHIP and Medicaid funded for our families. The recent election demonstrated that health care matters to a lot of people. We must find ways to ease or eliminate existing political and administrative barriers for families to get proper health care coverage.

While the Georgetown study heightens awareness about this disturbing trend, I am encouraged because I know Texas Children’s is working every day to make it better. This study just proves there’s still work to do, and children and families need Texas Children’s – all of us – continuing the fight for them. So keep paying attention. Keep voting. Keep talking about this. Together, we can help children’s health care in Texas and the rest of the country get back on track.

November 6, 2018 | (0) Comments

The second installment of my Leadership Maxims series recently ended, and I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did!

I love this series because it gives me a chance to share my Leadership Maxims, and it’s also such a great opportunity to spotlight amazing leadership throughout the organization. I’m so proud of the employees who were highlighted in the series for their outstanding service, and I was thrilled to read all of the great comments to and about the featured employees.

It is always a pleasure to read about the wonderful people who work at Texas Children’s and to hear from those who make our organization such a special place for our patients and their families. To thank them for their hard work and input, more than 100 employees who were either highlighted in the series or participated by commenting recently got to attend an exclusive private event with the Houston Texans. The event was held on October 30 and included an autograph session with two football players and a behind-the-scenes tour of NRG Stadium.

Click here to view a video recap of the event and here to look at photos from the celebration.

For three hours, employees got to kick back and relax in the Champion’s Club, get autographs from players Brian Peters and Alfred Blue, snap selfies with Texans cheerleaders and see some of NRG Stadium’s hot spots. This was a well-deserved break that I am thrilled our partnership with the Houston Texans allows.

I look forward to hearing from more of you during next year’s Maxims series. Until then, keep doing what you are doing – and striving to do even better – at making Texas Children’s one of the best places to care for children and women, in Texas, across the country and globe.

 

October 12, 2018 | (19) Comments

During a recent conversation with my colleagues about how well Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women is doing at caring for women, mothers and babies, we wagered how many little ones would be delivered at the hospital in fiscal year 2018.

My educated guess was 6,250. And wouldn’t you know it? That is exactly how many precious babies our expert clinical staff brought into the world between October 2017 and September 2018. This number has grown consistently every year since we opened the Pavilion for Women in March 2012, proving that our decision to provide women, mothers and babies with a full continuum of high-quality, expert health care was the right move.

Nearly seven years ago, the opening of the Pavilion was one of the most surreal moments in my years at Texas Children’s. That day was an incredible culmination of events that started in 2005, believe it or not, over a casual cup of coffee with David Fine, then-President and CEO of St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital.

As David and I were talking, he suggested that St. Luke’s was ready to shift away from women’s services. With the same assurance I had when I guessed the number of babies delivered at the Pavilion for Women this year, I immediately and literally raised my hand and said, “I want in. We’ll take it.”

I knew that no organization in the U.S. had conjoined a leading children’s hospital with a women’s hospital providing ob/gyn, maternal fetal medicine and other women’s services. This was a really big, novel idea that, honestly, a lot of people hesitated to embrace. But fortunately, Texas Children’s Board, leaders, staff and employees are not like most people. So this seemingly impossible idea quickly became a reality that our Board and leadership were passionately pursuing.

Within a couple years of that fateful cup of coffee with David, we were starting construction – Texas Children’s Hospital was building Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. And our mission became that much bigger.

As we continue on this incredible journey and trajectory, I am confident it will keep getting better and better. In fact, I’d bet on it!