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| Vol. 21, No. 5 |
| March 15, 1999 |
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About the New TCH Facilities and TMC News: Texas Children's Hospital typically has a very high inpatient occupancy rate. Will the additional approximately 30 beds be adequate for future needs? MW: The 30 additional beds which are dedicated for the Progressive Care Unit and the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit should be adequate to serve the projected needs of Texas Children's Hospital. Even though we are planning on adding only 30 new beds, we are building 250 replacement beds, of which these 30 intensive care beds are a part of. We will still have all of the beds in the Abercrombie Building to overflow from the West Tower vertical expansion, should our census dictate. TMCN: How are we - the Houston community - doing in regards to the 1/4 million kids here who are uninsured? MW: Houston is doing very poorly, just as the United States is, and the rest of Texas. Nationally, there are 11 million children without health insurance. In the state of Texas, there are over 1,400,000 children without health insurance. In Houston, it is estimated that there are approximately 250,000 children who are uninsured. In Texas and in Houston, we have a disproportionate percentage of our children who reside here who are without any form of health insurance, including Medicaid. Houston's record is not one we can be proud of; however, we've got to view this as an opportunity, because if we can implement Phase II of the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) it will cover nearly half of the uninsured in the state and in Harris County. Let's be sure and write the Governor and our legislators and encourage the Texas Legislature to adopt the CHIP program at 200 percent of the federal poverty level so we can insure the highest number of children possible. TMCN: You've just served as THA chairman. Children and their parents are lucky to live in Houston, close to a hospital like Texas Children's Hospital. But what about some of the more rural areas in Texas? How are kids doing in those areas? MW: Access and coverage in the rural areas of Texas is just as big a problem as it is in metropolitan areas like Houston. There is a shortage of physicians in the rural areas in Texas, particularly a shortage of pediatricians. Just as the metropolitan areas have a record that Houstonians and Texans cannot necessarily be proud of, again, we have a similar problem with access and coverage of children in the rural areas in Texas, as well. TMCN: Texas Children's Hospital is pioneering the field of telemedicine. What do you see in this field in the next 10 years or so? MW: The Internet is a component of telemedicine, and it will be used to communicate with physicians, as well as patients. So, we are at the very beginning, at the pioneering, at the embryonic stages of what telemedicine will be able to do in order to assist referring physicians and to better take care of patients. Just like the Internet is a very small sector in the overall field of technology, telemedicine is a very small component of medicine and healthcare, but that will change dramatically in the next 10 years and we will be a major medium for diagnosing and treating patients. TMCN: We've done well here in improving immunization rates. In closing, I just wanted to ask you for your thoughts on preventative health care and what the community-at-large can do for kids' health. MW: There is a direct correlation between the amount of preventative health care and primary health care that children receive and whether they have health insurance or not. The best thing that the community-at-large can do for kids' health is to be an informed citizen, and be cognizant of opportunities for improving children's health through improved access and coverage, such as the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). It is quite simple: children who have health insurance tend to see a pediatrician on a regular basis, whereas children without health insurance seldom see a pediatrician on an annual basis. Instead, their parents have to wait until the children's illnesses have progressed to an unnecessarily severe level, and then they typically access the emergency centers of the health care delivery system for a problem which could have been solved much earlier and more economically in the private pediatrician's office. - Roger Widmeyer
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