The Bulletin: July 2006

The Bulletin is a monthly newsletter for Children's and community providers.

New Medical Staff

Thomas Ray Burdick, MD, Radiology, UW
Carmen Herrera, MD, Neonatology, UW
Patricia Scott, MD, Children’s After Hours Clinic

New Allied Health Professional Staff

Shannon Fitzgerald, ARNP, Nephrology

New Legibility Standards

A new Washington state law requires all prescriptions to be hand printed, typewritten or electronically generated. Prescriptions issued using cursive writing no longer meet the state’s definition of a legible prescription.

For more information about the new law, contact the Medical Program Manager at the Washington Department of Health at (360) 236-4788.

ACGME Cardiology Fellowship

Next July, Children’s will be home to a new ACGME-accredited cardiology fellowship program. During this three-year program, fellows will undergo advanced training in pediatric cardiology and each will choose an area of clinical focus, such as transplantation or interventional cardiology. Initially, one applicant will be chosen for the fellowship each year.

The Cardiology Division will be restructured to seamlessly accommodate the fellows and create an optimal educational environment. To support its clinical and research plans, as well as the fellowship program, Cardiology added two faculty members in 2005 and two more faculty members will come on board in 2006.

Pediatric Bioethics Conference

Children’s Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics will hold its second annual conference, “Current Controversies: Ethical Issues Related to Vaccination of Children,” July 14-15 at Bell Harbor International Conference Center in Seattle.

The Treuman Katz Center is the nation’s first bioethics center focused solely on pediatric issues. At the conference, leaders in the field will address some of the most controversial ethical topics surrounding the vaccination of children, including vaccine development, vaccine policy and the balance between public health and individual preference regarding vaccination.

For more information and to register, visit the conference Web site. CME, CEU and Clock Hour continuing education credits are available to attendees. Contact Angel Latterell at (206) 987-7825 with questions.

Reducing MRSA Colonization

New in the secure area of the Medical Staff Web site: “Steps to Reduce MRSA Colonization.” This resource, created by staff in the Infectious Disease division, is under the Clinical Resources tab.

Mitchell Retires

Dr. Michael Mitchell, a pioneer in the field of pediatric urology and chief of Children’s Urology division, is retiring from Children’s after 17 years. Widely acknowledged as the world’s leading pediatric urologist, Mitchell developed surgical techniques to correct some of the most complex urologic malformations in children.

In 2004 he received the American Urological Association’s Hugh Hampton Young Award, recognizing his tremendous contributions to the discipline. Mitchell will be moving to Milwaukee to be closer to his children and grandchildren. He will continue to practice, part-time, at the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin.

“We will miss Mike tremendously,” says Dr. Robert Sawin, Children’s surgeon-in-chief. “Fortunately for us, he has built a nationally renowned division of pediatric urology and is leaving his patients in very capable hands.”

Access to Children's: Better Than Ever

In the past year, Children’s has implemented a number of initiatives designed to improve access to ambulatory care. Most of Children’s specialty clinics recently moved into the Melinda French Gates Ambulatory Care Building, a beautiful new state-of-the-art facility.

With more exam rooms and new processes that allow families to schedule return visits before they leave the building, the new facility is designed to maximize the clinical visit for both provider and patient.

Over the last year, Children’s expanded its centralized scheduling system. Family Service Representatives now answer more than 10,000 phone calls and schedule more than 4,000 appointments each month for 19 specialty clinics.

More clinics are lined up to join the centralized scheduling system later this year. The hospital also launched a centralized referral intake system, staffed by registered nurses with expertise in ambulatory specialty care who are available to work with referring physicians to review, process and expedite referrals.

With this new system, turnaround time for processing most referrals is now down to one day. In June, Children’s launched ambulatory computerized physician order entry (CPOE), a change that increases patient safety and ultimately will provide more timely information to referring physicians about how their patients are cared for during clinic visits.

This summer many departments are increasing capacity by hiring new providers. Over the next few months, additional physicians will join the following departments: Adolescent Medicine, Anesthesiology, Cardiology, Craniofacial, Critical Care, Dental Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Endocrinology, Genetics/Neurodevelopmental, Hematology/Oncology, Infectious Disease, Nephrology, Neurology, Orthopedics, and Radiology.

Decreasing the wait time between referrals and appointments remains a high priority at Children’s. The process upgrades described here have helped improve service, and have reduced wait time for new patient appointments by over a week since last year.

Using a Continuous Performance Improvement (CPI) methodology to reduce waste and delays in the system, Children’s will continue to concentrate on improving access to ambulatory services.

Physician operator a success

The physician operator, available by calling (206) 987-7777, has been an overwhelming success in improving communication between Children’s providers and referring physicians. Physicians in the community and Children’s faculty members are giving the new system rave reviews.

“I’ve gotten great feedback from community physicians about the physician operator,” says Dr. Mike Dudas, president of Children’s medical staff and a physician at Redmond Pediatrics, “and personally, I think it’s amazing. It makes getting through to the faculty so much easier.” Children’s providers also use the physician operator to reach referring physicians.

The numbers attest to the new system’s success: During the May evaluation period, Children’s physicians successfully returned 94.6 percent of end-of-the-day calls to community providers and 95.7 percent of urgent calls within the required time frames.

Access information online

Information about accessing the services offered by Children’s is now even easier to find.

Go to Access Our Services for current information about referring and admitting patients, as well as information about using Children’s diagnostic, emergency, home care and other services.

This area also contains current pre-referral guidelines and important contact information.

Grand Rounds

View the schedule of upcoming Grand Rounds.

Grand Rounds Online

View online versions of recent Grand Rounds.

On-Call Schedule

The on-call schedule for inpatient services can be found in the secure area of the Medical Staff Web site. It is updated on a daily basis.