Chanda Cashen President, Texas Children’s Hospital West Campus[/caption]Chanda Cashen Chacón has been with Texas Children’s Hospital for 13 years and began serving as president of the West Campus in January.
A native Texan, she came to the hospital system after attending graduate school at Yale University. She said she began her career with Texas Children’s Hospital as an administrative fellow. Before moving to West Campus, she was involved in outpatient operations in the Texas Medical Center as well as its pharmacy, Heart Center and Fetal Center.
Her pursuit of a career in health care stemmed from a bad experience in adult medical settings when she was a child, Cashen Chacón said. At age 11 she was in a car accident that left her temporarily unable to walk. She relied on a wheelchair and was in chronic pain, she said. For two years medical professionals could not figure out what was wrong.
Her family eventually found an orthopedic surgeon who was good at working with children. He brought two Shetland sheepdogs to her first appointment and spoke directly to her, Cashen Chacón said. He also correctly diagnosed and treated her cracked vertebral discs.
That experience changed her life trajectory, and she pursued a career in health care because she did not want another family to go through the negative hospital visits her family had experienced, she said.
Cashen Chacón said the West Campus facility is working to stay ahead of the area’s growth curve. She cites expanded specialty care, including sports medicine and a new pediatric special isolation unit, as ways the hospital is meeting the needs of Katy-area families.
Why did Texas Children’s Hospital decide to build in west Houston?
We look at where the pediatric market is. We really want to build infrastructure close to families and where they live. Houston’s gotten so large and it takes a lot of time to travel [to the main campus], and the patient experience for us is key.
Why would parents choose pediatric care over a traditional hospital?
It’s really for [the] unique training we have in dealing with children. We always say, ‘Kids aren’t just small adults.’ When you walk in, when you see what [the hospital] looks like, we have personnel who are trained to help children and their families and their siblings understand what’s going to happen. They’re called child-life specialists, and those employees really focus on how children learn and experience [events] and they help make it less scary.
What specialties are unique to the West Campus?
The one that comes to mind is the special isolation unit. By far that is probably the most unique service that we provide here that will not be replicated anywhere else in our system. Another service that is really the hub here right now is sports medicine. We provide that service all over the Houston market, [and] we’ve invested quite a bit [in Katy] because there are a lot of kids out here.
What are a few examples of why a child might require a stay at the isolation unit?
You may have heard about the outbreak of [Middle East respiratory syndrome] and also hemorrhagic fever, Marburg [virus], [or] Lassa [fever]. Those would be really serious pathogens [for which] we would call in our specially trained team. If we had a measles outbreak here like we saw in California [earlier this year], we could cohort those patients and keep them safe, our employees safe and other patients here safe as well. Also with different strains of the flu—which are really a lot more prevalent than any of the special pathogens—that would be an ideal patient to have in this unit.
Do you work with your neighbor Houston Methodist?
Texas Children’s and Baylor College of Medicine manage their NICU at Methodist West and across the [Houston] system, so we have really strong alignment both in partnership and in how we care for patients. We just opened a helipad here. It’s the first helipad in the [Texas Children’s] system. [Houston] Methodist West next door also has a helipad, and so we’ve had really good partnership discussions. If something happens to our helipad or if something happens with theirs, we will work together to say, ‘OK, land over here. Land over there,’ because it’s the right thing to do and with families and patients, we don’t want it to be confusing. We partner to do the right thing for our families.
