Dr. Lynda TYER-VIOLA
Vice President, Women's Services and Professional Development and Research, Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women, USA
Assistant Clinical Professor, Baylor College of Medicine, USA

Dr. Tyer-Viola RNC PhD FAAN is a Vice President and the Associate Chief Nursing Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital an 800 bed women’s and children’s hospital system in Houston Texas. She is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of OBGYN at Baylor College of Medicine and a Faculty Nurse Scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital. She earned her BSN from Boston University, a Masters in Nursing from University of Miami and a PhD from Boston College in 2005. She is certified in Inpatient Obstetrics and Advanced Nursing Administration and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. Dr. Tyer-Viola is responsible for nursing care in the Pavilion for Women where 6500 families deliver annually. Dr. Tyer-Viola spearheads the development of nursing research and clinical inquiry for women, children and families throughout the system. Her research interests include People living with HIV/AIDS, high risk obstetrics and the nursing workforce.  Currently she is engaged with a team in determining what caring behaviors make hospitalized adults feel safe and examining the effect of quality initiatives on decreasing racial disparities in maternal morbidity.

Abstract

Maternity Care in a Global Pandemic: Ensuring Quality Childbirth Care – The Houston Experience

Creating and maintaining obstetrical care during a world pandemic required care for our teams as well as care for our patients. Texas Children’s Hospital experienced a rapid decline in pediatric patients yet maintained our obstetrical service with over 500 deliveries per month.  Leadership quickly assessed and adapted to the family needs of our work community. Engaging nurses and physicians to be partners in creating new work flows while maintaining social distancing was paramount. Clinical care continued with women requiring either in person, telemedicine or drive thru prenatal care and testing of all patients. Implementing evidence based care in our intensive care unit, labor and operating room suites and postpartum mother infant care rooms required COVID precautions and isolation care in several units. Our experience involves caring for women with severe illness between 25-30 weeks gestation with an increase in intrauterine death related to severity of illness of the mother. We implemented extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) for pregnant women to improve oxygenation and prevent long term lung damage. Evolving evidence in care of our infants allowed us to continue with couplet care and feeding practices. Families are considered our partners and we evolved our visitor policy with the evolving Houston experience. Today, we continue serving COVID positive families with zero patient to care provider transmission.  We have an active vaccine program for our staff, families and the community and will continue to provide care based on evolving evidence.

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