Mark Wallace outlines this organization’s plan to be the best provider of pediatric care.

Mark Wallace, president and CEO of Texas Children’s Hospital, can’t wait for 2010 to get here. For the past 18 months, he and his board, medical staff, and executive and management teams evaluated how to enhance the organization’s clinical, educational, and research programming while keeping in mind the needs of the surrounding community. Their conclusion became Vision 2010: Excellence to Eminence, a $1.5 billion capital expansion and construction program.

Mark Wallace

“We want to better understand our market, our environment, and what the opportunities are to further enhance the quality and excellence of all of our programs, whether it’s in clinical expertise, our graduate medical education programs with Baylor College of Medicine, or as it relates to our research initiatives,” Wallace explained. “Vision 2010 gives us that leverage.”

Clear vision
Texas Children’s first opened its doors in 1954 and has since become one of the largest pediatric hospitals in the US. Having received numerous awards for its advancements in the areas of pediatric research, it is not surprising two of the four elements of Vision 2010 focus on the organization’s research component.

The Feigin Center, Texas Children’s existing research institute, is currently 12 stories tall. Through Vision 2010, the facility will add eight stories and roughly 200,000 square feet at a capital cost of $120 million. The renovation enhances the organization’s focus on pediatric research and will house the departments of allergy and immunology, leukocyte biology, cardiology, neonatology, and pulmonary. It will also house Texas Children’s Cancer Center Molecular Core Lab, the Diabetes Research Center, and the Liver Center. Although part of Vision 2010, Feigin Center is expected to open its doors in November 2008.

The second phase of Vision 2010 is the development of Texas Children’s Neurological Research Institute. The new facility will be located in the heart of Texas Medical Center and will be 15 stories tall and roughly 400,000 square feet. The institute will be dedicated to studying complex pediatric neurological problems and disorders, such as autism, cerebral palsy, downs syndrome, RETT syndrome, and Angelman syndrome.

“An estimated 14 million US children have at least one of those debilitating neurological problems,” Wallace said. “A lot of time and research has gone into other areas of pediatric medicine, such as cancer and cardiology, but we believe the brain and neuro-sciences need to be further explored at a much faster rate than they have been in the past.”

The neurological research institute will cost $215 million and will be completed in 2010. Although many other established adult neurological research institutes exist in the US, Wallace believes Texas Children’s will be the first to combine pediatrics, neurology, genetics, neuro-genetics, physics, chemistry, mathematics, and informatics with pediatric research.

Collaborative edge
Neurology is one of many centers of excellence at Texas Children’s. The organization has 26 board-certified pediatric neurologists on staff full time. “We see many children who suffer from neurological diseases,” Wallace explained. “We mitigate to what degree the disease impacts the child and the family, but we don’t cure these problems. We want to find the cures and begin to prevent these diseases.”

Pediatric research has been a combined focus for Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine for many years. The two organizations have been affiliated since 1954—Texas Children’s as Baylor’s private primary pediatric teaching hospital and Baylor as one of the top recipients of research funds in the country. Wallace said all of the researchers, MDs, and PhDs who will be geographically based at Texas Children’s and domiciled at the neurological research institute are full-time Baylor faculty.

“Coupled with Baylor’s standing as 10th in the US for overall research funding for a school of medicine, we’ve created a core foundation we believe will yield the results we want,” Wallace said. In addition, Rice University has expressed interest in partnering with the research institute, and Texas Children’s is in discussions with cancer center MD Anderson regarding its possible occupation of two or three floors in the institute.

“We don’t see this as a Texas Children’s initiative,” Wallace said. “We see this as a collaborative research initiative between Texas Children’s and other like-minded organizations.”

All in the family
The third component to Vision 2010 is Texas Children’s Maternity Center. The organization had already entered into the high-risk OB, perinatology, and comprehensive maternal fetal medicine service business after assuming responsibility of St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital’s OB program in 2006.

“We inherited an outstanding program from St. Luke’s,” Wallace said. “The program handles close to 2,300 deliveries a year, and roughly 1,000 of those fall into the high-risk category that are referred to our Level II and Level III neonatology units.”

The maternity center will cost roughly $575 million and will measure 700,000 square feet. Still in the planning stages, the center will be conjoined with Texas Children’s Hospital via a double-decked bridge and will allow the full-time faculty of Texas Children’s and Baylor’s OB/gyn departments to see patients on an outpatient basis and admit and treat women for obstetrics and perinatology services.

The last component of Vision 2010, the development of Texas Children’s West Houston campus, is a $220 million, 350,000-square-foot facility that will house pediatric and subspecialty services, inpatient beds, operating rooms, an ED, a professional office building, and comprehensive diagnostic and therapeutic
services. Wallace plans to use the remaining $400 million of capital to upgrade Texas Children’s clinical information system, as well as adding and replacing medical equipment between 2007 and 2011.

“We’re in the midst of a capital campaign, which we call Heal Sick Children,” Wallace said. “The ultimate goal is to raise $300 million through that campaign for Vision 2010, and I’m pleased to report we’ve already hit the $180 million mark.”

Although raising capital may seem the toughest component of Vision 2010, Wallace said the biggest challenge is developing the intellectual capital to support the bricks and mortar. Texas Children’s currently has about 6,500 employees, and by 2010 that number will jump to 9,000. “We’re looking outside of Texas to find medical professionals for these facilities,” Wallace said. “Recruitment is a challenge for any healthcare organization and will continue to be a challenge for Texas Children’s, but I can’t wait to get to 2010 and see our results.”