Legal Affairs: King v. Burwell: The Supremes rule in the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act, see page 3
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The Leading Source for Healthcare Business News
Special Report: Patient Safety
July 2015 • Volume 12, Issue 4 • $3.50
Patients deserve transparency
INSIDE
▼
Baylor College of Medicine
and Texas Heart Institute
announce affiliation
see page 8
INDEX
▼
Legal Affairs......................3
Financial Perspectives.......4
THA................................5
Integrative Medicine.........6
Hospital Headlines...........8
Physicians’ Forum.............9
Moving On Up................13
Special Feature................14
BY DR. CHARLES D.
FRASER JR., Surgeon-inChief, Texas Children’s
Hospital
Mortality and complication
rates for any health care topic,
especially pediatric surgical
procedures, are difficult to discuss, but we
must not shy away. These statistics are
more than just numbers – they are very
meaningful, life-and-death data about our
children, and we must approach this issue
openly, honestly, and candidly.
The unfortunate truth is this data for
any pediatric surgery is often not easy for
parents to find nor is it easy for hospitals to
assess. However, we believe the time has
come for the public to expect transparent
performance outcomes that are reported
in a consistent, uniform way. It may be
a matter of life or death for children with
complex conditions.
As a pediatric heart surgeon and surgeon-inchief at Texas Children’s Hospital, families
routinely tell me they had no idea where to
turn when their child was diagnosed with a
major heart defect or other condition that
needed a complex surgical repair. Where
do parents begin when trying to access
information about which hospital and
doctor to trust?
Surprisingly, until a few years ago it was
nearly impossible to base that decision
on how a hospital performed: how many
procedures they did, what the mortality
rates were, what the chances were for
complications, etc. Families were left in
the dark, forcing them to rely on word of
mouth and well-meaning friends and family
Please see PATIENT SAFETY page 16
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Breaking Ground: Texas Children’s Hospital opens first-of-its-kind pediatric
Heart Failure Intensive Care Unit
Bugs and the brain:
The emerging science
of psychobiotics
see page 6
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Recently, Texas Children’s Heart Center
and the section of Critical Care Medicine
cut the ribbon on a new, first-of-its-kind
pediatric Heart Failure Intensive Care Unit.
This highly specialized 12-bed unit focuses
on the treatment of children with heart
Patient Marcelo Perez and hospital leaders pose in front of the new Texas
Children’s Heart Failure Intensive Care Unit.
Photo by: Paul Vincent Kuntz/Texas Children’s Hospital
failure, as well as those requiring intensive
care before and after heart transplant.
“We are thrilled to be the first in the
nation to offer this highly-specialized
level of pediatric critical care,” said Dr.
Paul Checchia, medical director of the
Please see BREAKING GROUND page 17
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