Hospital news for the medical staff

Outpatient Infusion Center now available
Texas Children’s Hospital now offers an Infusion Center for patients requiring IV therapy.

Infusion Center patients do not need to be admitted, which frees up additional beds in the inpatient units. Located on the fourth floor of West Tower, the center’s open bay environment allows nurses to closely monitor each patient. IV treatments will start and end on time.

Refer a patient by calling Texas Children’s Central Scheduling at 832-822-2778. Should multiple treatments be required, appointments for the entire therapy plan can be made—all in one phone call. Please note that research patients are not good candidates for the Infusion Center.

The Texas Children’s Infusion Center hours are 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. The clinic will expand to Saturday hours in early 2007.

Progress Notes wins Bronze Quill award
The Houston chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) presented Progress Notes with an Award of Merit at its annual Bronze Quill competition.
The Bronze Quill awards recognize outstanding achievement in a broad variety of communications initiatives, including annual reports, communications campaigns, newsletters, magazines and Web sites. This year, 87 entries were received. Texas Children’s monthly Parents Connection e-newsletter also received an Award of Merit.

With over 250 members, IABC-Houston Chapter is part of a 13,000-member global network of communications professionals committed to improving organizational effectiveness through strategic communications.

New Web-based conference list available
We are pleased to announce that our intranet listing of open department and section conferences is up and running. Now there is a place where departments and sections can list conferences to which they are willing to invite physicians from outside of their own disciplines.

There are many conferences within a department or section that would be of interest to fellows and attendings from other disciplines. In some cases, the conference room is too small to accommodate guests. Also, there are some conferences where attendance by individuals from other disciplines would alter the nature of the conference or slow it down, for example, a conference on pulmonary physiology or a cardiac catheterization conference. For many conferences, however, visitors from other disciplines would enhance the experience for everyone.

The list is available through the Physician Resource Center page on the Texas Children’s Hospital Intranet. The link is listed as “Conference List.” Currently, for most conferences, the list shows only the conference name, time, and location. As we receive information about individual speakers and topics, we will add that to the list. Such specific information will need to be provided to us at least two weeks in advance. Please note that we have listings only for the Department of Pediatrics; but we invite all departments to list their "open" conferences.

Please consult this list if you are interested in knowing which conferences are scheduled for the month. If there is a conference in your section that’s not listed, but you would like to have added, or if there is an error in the listing of your conference, please have the person responsible for that conference contact Valerie Veasley (832-824-1109) or Dr. Martin Lorin (832-824-2211) by phone or e-mail.

Two services added; new chiefs named
Texas Children’s has added two services: Academic Medicine Service, under the Department of Medicine, and the Maternal Fetal Medicine Service under the Department of Surgery.

Dr. Virginia Moyer has been named chief of Academic Medicine and Dr. Dale Brown is the acting chief of Maternal Fetal Medicine. In addition, Dr. Thomas G. Luerssen is the new chief of Neurosurgery.