March 6, 2018 | (91) Comments

So let’s say you take your family out for dinner. You’ve picked a great new restaurant, and the food is delicious, the ambiance is perfect, but the wait staff is a bit rude. Well, no matter how great the food is, what are the chances that you’re going to go back? Probably pretty unlikely – right?

Well, our patients and families choose to seek care at Texas Children’s because they know without a doubt that we provide the best quality of care! We have the best and brightest people in the world taking care of their loved ones. However, once they walk through the doors, patients and families evaluate us based on the quality of the service they receive. A big part of that quality of service begins before they even walk through our doors. For many of our patient families, that experience begins with something that should be relatively simple – convenient parking.

When we design and construct our buildings, we include ample parking for our patient families as well. But lately many of our patient families have been unable to find parking in the garages at our Medical Center Campus. That happens in some part because Texas Children’s employees are occupying spaces that have been designated for patient families or are using the valet services intended for our patient families.

Just two weeks ago, Security turned away 51 employees trying to park in Garage 21. That would have been 51 patient families that would have been frustrated or inconvenienced. This ongoing concern has created an overwhelming burden on our patient families who come to Texas Children’s for their care. A couple of comments from a recent Press Ganey survey:

“Parking is terrible. I almost missed an appointment due to waiting 16 minutes just to get into the parking garage and another 15 to 20 minutes to park, as the garage was full.”

 “Parking our vehicle was a nightmare. We spent over an hour trying to get a parking spot.”

 As part of Texas Children’s Step Up for Patients First initiative, we encourage our employees to live compassionately and put our patients and their families first. A simple way to do this includes giving families priority access to parking to help ensure they get to their children’s clinical appointments on time.

Using the limited parking reserved for our patient families is counter to the experience we are all committed to providing them. It also disregards Texas Children’s Parking Policy, which prohibits employees from parking in Texas Children’s Hospital garages 12, 16 or 21 or using valet services when you are here for work purposes. To ensure employees understand this policy and the desire of Texas Children’s to put patients and families first, Security will continue to conduct random monitoring and take appropriate steps to correct this practice.

Having free, dedicated employee parking garages (garages 14 and 19) at the Meyer Building and a large, frequently circulating fleet of employee shuttles provides all employees with convenient alternatives to the limited parking on the Medical Center Campus, which is the only option for our patient families and visitors. Coming to the world’s largest medical center and navigating a parking garage, especially with the temporary closures due to our current construction, is difficult enough for families. Let’s do all we can to ease the experience.

We can create a better experience for patient families and visitors by parking in the designated employee garages so that finding parking is the least of their concerns. It’s a simple step that will have a lasting impact on a family’s experience with us.

February 23, 2018 | (4) Comments

As you might have seen on Connect his week, the Blue Bird Circle is celebrating its 95th birthday. Can you believe that? Ninety-five years, and they have been truly amazing, decade after decade.

The Blue Bird Circle was formed in 1923 by a group of 15 young women from Houston “to promote the well-being of humanity through the betterment of the community.”  That’s an ambitious charge, but it was far from impossible for these aspiring women. Today, the Blue Bird Circle is the oldest and one of the most prominent women’s charitable organizations in the city—an organization that gives back to the community with all its heart and soul.

For those of us at Texas Children’s, the words “Blue Bird Circle” are synonymous with its members’ generosity, volunteerism, commitment, dedication … I could go on and on with that list. Specifically, members of the Blue Bird Circle have been the catalyst for so much of what has happened in pediatric neurology in the past 20 years. A beautiful partnership began when The Blue Bird Circle Clinic for Pediatric Neurology moved from The Methodist Hospital to Texas Children’s in 1998.

When it first moved, the Clinic recorded fewer than 1,000 patient visits a year and had just three doctors. Today, 52 physicians and surgeons see more than 25,000 patients each year, making the clinic the largest of its kind in the world, and our Neuroscience Center is ranked no. 4 in the United States by U.S. News & World Report. The care we provide, the research we conduct because of the Blue Birds … all this benefits the patients we serve here and children with neurological conditions all over the world. If that’s not the betterment of humanity, I don’t know what is.

In 2014, the Blue Bird Circle donated $2 million to establish the Blue Bird Circle Endowed Chair for Pediatric Neurology and Neurosciences, with Dr. Gary Clark as the first to hold the chair. This is one of only four endowed pediatric chairs in neurology in the country. What an incredible gift.

Over the years, the Blue Birds have given $12 million in other gifts, bringing their total giving to Texas Children’s to an amazing $14 million. And at their recent 95th birthday celebration, they donated another $1.9 million. In addition to their generous funding, Blue Bird members volunteer countless hours at the Clinic and at The Blue Bird Circle Resale Shop, which does an outstanding job of raising awareness in the community about pediatric neurological disorders and all the work Texas Children’s is doing.

I cannot put a price tag on what the Blue Birds are worth to Texas Children’s Hospital, because they are absolutely priceless. Thank you to each and every one of you ladies for your generosity, unfailing support, hard work and especially for the love and joy you bring to patients and families at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Happy 95th birthday Blue Bird Circle … and many more!

February 6, 2018 | (3) Comments

According to a recent physician satisfaction survey conducted by the Harris County Medical Society, Texas Children’s is the highest ranking hospital in Harris County. Wow! Needless to say, this is an amazing accomplishment and a testament to the exceptional quality of work we do across our system every day.

There were more than 3,900 responses to the survey conducted last fall, providing results for 26 hospitals in the Greater Houston area. The survey results for Texas Children’s were incredible, with our West Campus and Medical Center Campus ranking in the no. 1 and 2 spots for overall satisfaction, as well as in the following categories:

  1. Having error prevention policies and systems
  2. Encouraging the reporting of medical errors
  3. Quality of nursing staff
  4. Communication about compliance with standards
  5. Physician input into quality measures

When it came to reputation, we outranked our competitors across the board:

  • 92% of physicians rated Texas Children’s reputation as favorable, the highest percentage among all 26 hospitals.
  • 86% of physicians said they would likely refer patients to Texas Children’s, placing us at the top of the list in a tie with MD Anderson.
  • With a net promoter score of 50, we outranked every other institution on the list when physicians were asked their likelihood to recommend a facility.

Texas Children’s Hospital and Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus were also at or very near the top of the remaining survey categories, including error prevention, priority of patient safety, post-discharge communication, and quality of nursing and support staff. Having our hospitals lead the pack in so many areas speaks volumes. It demonstrates our focus on consistently exceptional care across our system. And I feel confident that once our campus at The Woodlands becomes part of the survey, we will see similar results.

Our relationships with area physicians is critical to our mission of providing access to the children who need us most. These results attest to the relationships we have built and continue to nurture with physicians in Houston and beyond. And they also speak to physicians’ trust of the Texas Children’s brand. I am so thankful for all of the work you do every single day to strengthen our brand, locally and across the state and country, and to ensure we provide the best possible outcomes for our patients.

Please see the survey results and other comparison reports by clicking the links below:

 

January 11, 2018 | (88) Comments

Nearly 50 years ago, on April 4, 1968, our nation was rocked by the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. It was a sad and senseless end to the life of a servant leader who preached and practiced love and peaceful tolerance.

The day after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death, school teacher Jane Elliott walked into her classroom to greet her third-grade students. Though she entered with a heavy heart, she became a catalyst that her students would never forget. That day, Jane conducted what she called the blue eyes-brown eyes exercise on racism.

Click here to watch a brief excerpt of the exercise.

Essentially, she used the color of the children’s eyes to distinguish and associate them with positive or negative attributes. On the first day of the exercise, the blue-eyed children had the upper hand. They enjoyed all the things young school children appreciate – longer recess, second helpings to lunch and positive affirmation throughout the school day. Conversely, the brown-eyed children were denied these comforts. Instead, they heard repeated comments about how their brown eyes made them less intelligent. Less worthy. In addition, the brown-eyed children had to wear a bright collar around their necks so they could be identified as brown-eyed from a distance.

Within hours, the interaction between the children went from friendly and inclusive to hostile. The blue-eyed children, having heard positive reinforcement all day, performed their lessons with ease and confidence, which of course was good. But they also quickly developed a sense of entitlement and superiority. They teased and picked fights with the brown-eyed students – bright boys and girls who now, amid the exercise, were hesitant, struggling a bit more with their work and feeling discouraged.

A physical trait beyond their control, suddenly controlled them and their interactions with each other. On the second day, Jane flipped the exercise, giving the brown-eyed children the preferential treatment. Needless to say, all the children were relieved to stop the exercise at the end of the second day. And they gladly tossed aside their despised collars – the ones meant to distinguish them from a distance as the non-preferred group.

I think about this experiment, some 50 years later on the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I think about the sadness on the children’s faces and their dampened spirits. I think about the collars that are not so easily discarded and how some allow them to separate us. And, like Jane, I think, “What can we do?” How can we be catalysts in 2018 when it seems we have found even more ways and reasons to discriminate against people? And how do we overcome a climate that makes all of this seem acceptable?

Perhaps we do exactly as Martin Luther King Jr. did – we live and work in a way that demonstrates love and peaceful inclusion of our brothers and sisters. Regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation or any other element that makes us seem different from each other. We are all potential catalysts who have the power to change the way our communities believe and engage with each other. And our influence on the most impressionable among us – children – is immense. If within hours, otherwise amicable children can swiftly go from harmonious to hostile simply because of the messages they received from their teacher, imagine the impact we have on the children in our care and in our homes. Imagine how that would flourish in the hearts of children as they grow into adults.

What we believe and the words we say shape us and the people around us, in a way that either breaks or binds us. On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, resolve to be a binding agent. Tolerance should be a given – it’s one of the most basic things we owe one another. But I challenge you to do even more. Resolve to truly love. And when it’s challenging, try with all your might to step into your neighbor’s shoes. Imagine the collar hanging heavily from his or her neck. And then remove it. It’s up to us to heal our communities and move on from the real-life exercise that’s gone on much too long.