Chapter 07: Expanding the Patient Education Office: The Learning Centers
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Description
Ms. Villejo begins by talking about her promotion to Director of the Patient Education Office in 1986/87 and the reporting structure in which she worked at this time, when the Office was made part of the Public Affairs Office.
She then tells the story of creating the first Learning Center in 1987, a forerunner of patient and family centered care that is now the focus of the institution. She then explains how two more centers were created. She notes a few programs held at the Centers and also underscores that thirty thousand people per year use the Centers.
Identifier
VillejoL_01_20150507_C07
Publication Date
5-7-2015
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES, Oral History Interview, May 07, 2015
Topics Covered
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - Building the Institution; The Administrator; MD Anderson History; Institutional Mission and Values; Building/Transforming the Institution; Education; Ethics; Information for Patients and the Public
Transcript
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Because I was wondering like when your next promotion came about.
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
So from health educator to director?
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. And what year was that?
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Let’s see. I started in ’82. I think it was—I’d have to go back and look—’86 maybe, ’87. So the director left for another position and I was acting director, me and we still have like three people in the office. And so then it was a meeting with at that time—I don’t know if you’re aware of what happened with Dr. Conrad.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
His murder, yes.
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Yes. So we were reporting to Dr. Ainsworth. So I was talking to Dr. Ainsworth about the position, and I said that I would be interested in the position. And so then I’m not sure if they did any kind of search or what they did. But then I don’t think it was a year later, definitely less than a year that I was acting. And then I was appointed the director.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Now what did you feel you brought to that directorship as a leader?
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Well, I obviously knew the program and knew what needed to be accomplished as far as continuing what we were doing and then building upon it. And obviously the institution was growing too so there was never a dull moment for needs and requests for different programs or materials or consults to work with different departments, because we really work with not only all the clinical groups but like UTTV is a very close colleague, and Public Affairs, Public Education, we’ve always worked very closely with them, they’re Community Relations and Education now. So within that group. And then at one point we had what was called the Place...of wellness. And they were also—so we always have worked closely with them. So one of the interesting things was when I was reporting to Dr. Ainsworth and I was—then they had me reporting to what was patient affairs at that time, but I was reporting to the director of Clinical Operations and the director of Patient Care at the same time. So for Clinical Operations it was more budgetary. And then for Patient Care it was more program. So I was reporting to both of those. And then I guess they decided that they were going to organize more all the educational components together. And that’s when I started reporting to Steve Stuyck.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
OK. In Public Affairs.
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Mm-hmm. And at first I thought wow, this is strange, because I work with all the Clinical Operations people, and this is a whole different division. But really that was the best thing that could have happened to us, because Steve was an incredible support and leader and really supported us in every idea that we had. When we wanted to start a Learning Center, he would take me around to the different leadership to talk about the idea and the importance of it. And we couldn’t have had a greater support person, boss.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So a very good move.
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Mm-hmm.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So tell me. It sounds like at that moment when you took over as director, the whole operation was poised to expand again.
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So what was your vision for that expansion as you took on that new role?
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Well, one of the things was the Learning Center. And I was able to through conferences that I went to, or I think some of it was my own personal travel, I was able to go to what I saw in the literature as some of the leading places that were developing a patient/family-centered approach and learning centers. And so Planetree was back then and still is one of the leaders in a healing environment and really looking at a healing and educational environment. And they had a really nice learning center in San Francisco. And so I was able to meet with them and see what they were doing there. The Mayo Clinic has probably one of the first learning centers. It was a really big learning center compared to back at that time, did a lot of support, and that was all different disease sites, not just cancer. And so they were another model. And also another model was New York Cooperative Care Center. And they had a very unique model where they actually had patients and family members come and stay in this tower for a few days to learn what they needed to learn outside of the clinical environment, and then on the top floor they had a learning center, and they had the dietitians meet with the patients and family members, and they had the whole interdisciplinary team. Whoever needed to do education would come to that learning center or wherever—I don’t think that they went to the patient’s room. And it was really like a little hotel room. And then there was University of Minnesota. And they had a learning center that was quite unique in that they did clinical skills as well as education. So they actually would do their—like we have our central venous catheter class here on the eighth floor across the street. Their program, I guess because it was smaller, they did all that clinical teaching. So the patient family member would make appointments, and then they would come in and get that one-on-one education. Or they might have a class or that kind of thing. So that was very exciting to me to see. These were some of the forerunners of the patient/family-centered care movement. And also I was invited to participate in—Picker/Commonwealth was one of the first people that started working in patient/family-centered care. And so in looking at all of these great programs, we really wanted to get something started. And we had actually been funded probably in the mid ’80s. We were told that there was a donor that wanted to provide I think it was about $15,000, which of course was $15,000 at that time, for a teaching learning type of situation. So we put our proposal in for the Learning Center, and we got funded, but we didn’t have any space. And we were in still that little one room over there in the hospital. And so they did give us a little bit more space around where we were, so now we were like four, five rooms now, small, but still—but we didn’t have any space to start the Learning Center. So at one meeting that I was at, when they were first opening what was called the Anderson Mayfair, so that was one of Houston’s first apartment buildings, and actually had a bar and I don’t know what all over there. But Kay McCall was the woman that was head of Patient Guest Relations when it first started. And she was starting to design the area, because they were going to have hotel rooms. And then the first floor was going to be patient amenities and resources. So she was starting to design that. So I was sitting next to her in a meeting. I said, “Well, we’re really trying to start a Learning Center.” And she goes, “Well, why don’t you come over? And we’ll see if we can have space for you.” So that was our first Learning Center. Now we didn’t have any staff for the Learning Center. But we nicely appointed it with her help. She was a great designer. And we had a little phone on the wall that went to our 1-800-4-CANCER number, which was across the street in what was then the Houston Main Building. And we had resources. And then one of our staff would go over there and be there for a little while and help with the resources and so forth. So that was our first Learning Center with no space.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And that was in what year?
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Gosh. Let me just say ’87. And so we were just totally thrilled with that. And then—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What was the effect of having that there? What was the usage? What was the impact you saw from the Learning Center?
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Well, the utilization grew. And we still have this collaboration to this day. So the Patient Guest Relations staff were there all the time. So they would help patients identify what their needs were and they would bring them into our Learning Center, if that was going to be helpful. And then Susan Peterson was the woman that really I think was one of the first ones that helped us get that started. She was a health educator in our office. And so it was very exciting to us to have that resource. Of course they had support groups over there. They had the Chaplaincy would go over there. So we were all as a team trying to fill the need of the patients that were staying there in the Anderson Mayfair at the time. And then we were given another little room over by where our offices were, connected to our office over in the hospital. And so it was actually a bathroom and they retrofitted it just to be a room for us. And then we opened a little Learning Center in there. And let me tell you. It was probably as big as like from the door maybe to this table, just that big.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
My gosh. So what, fifteen feet by—
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Two, four, six, eight, maybe ten. Maybe ten. Say ten, but there was bookshelves and stuff, because this is where we had all of our print materials and stuff too, and the copier, and, and, and. So we put a computer in there and outfitted it and we had one computer that they could watch videos on. And of course we had a VCR probably to show the videos. And then we also had a staff person that would sit in there and help people. So we had small spaces. We started out small. But we had the program. We were developing the program. So when they opened the LeMaistre Building, Clark Clinic Building, Cancer Prevention got this really nice space there on the fourth floor, and they wanted a Learning Center for their area. And so they invited us to come over there and develop that Learning Center for them. So it was a marriage of convenience. They wanted the program and we had a program. And so that was just—I don’t know if you’ve been over there to the fourth floor.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-mm. And this is the fourth floor of the Clark Clinic?
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
I think it’s the LeMaistre Building. [ ]. But it’s right outside the elevator. So that we started in ’95. Want to say ’95. And so we were thrilled. Oh my God, that space was just—they built for a Learning Center. And so then the Patient Education Office of course didn’t really have staff. But they did have the director position. And so I worked very closely with Cancer Prevention, because they were the funding source. And they obviously had ideas of what kind of resources they wanted in the Learning Center. I remember one doctor wanted it to be a paperless Learning Center. This was way ahead of his time. (laughter) It’s like well, patients really want to take things away. Yeah. But we were just totally thrilled, because it was just a beautiful space. And we thought it was going to be right in the traffic area, but then they switched it so the fourth floor was for employee entrance and the third floor was for patient entrance. So we weren’t really in that great traffic area that we thought we might be in. But nonetheless we were totally thrilled about it. And over time we’ve been able to grow staff for that Learning Center. And so then when they were opening the Mays Clinic, we were asked to—a group of us that had all the patient amenities and resources, they were really able to build that out so that we were all together instead of the Place...of wellness here and the Learning Center over there and then the Hospitality Room wherever we could be stuck into a place. Here we were all together. So that was just wonderful. We were able to plan that space out and have classroom space there. That was one thing in the early days that was really really difficult, was a space for classrooms. I mean we were under the auditorium, we were in just all these crazy places to try to have classes for patients and family members. Here, in the Learning Center across the street, in the LeMaistre Building, and then here, we were able to build a classroom next door to us. So that was just beyond thrilling. (laughter) If you don’t know, this is my excitement.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Hey, well, it’s take your gifts where you find them. I mean there are so many stories with people talking about how space is and certainly was at such a premium here.
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Always. Oh yeah. I mean even when our offices were in the hospital, we would have doctors come in measuring our space. And we’d be like hello, do you need something. And they did need us in the end, because they moved us out of there. But we have a beautiful space now, so I can’t complain about that. It’s just—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Where are you located now?
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
We’re on the eighth floor of the CPB.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Cancer Prevention Building.
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Yes. If you go up to the conference area, conference rooms, just keep walking past the conference rooms. And we’re there. And almost everybody has an office and a window. And we never had windows before. I mean when I first started in—that was the Lutheran Pavilion. And in my office there was like this Depression glass. So you cross your eyes and see outside. But that was grass. And that was before they built the park and everything back there. So we were totally thrilled with the Learning Center. And so little by little—of course we had to staff that too. And then little by little we were able to get the staffing for that. And then when we moved over here to the Mays, now that’s an incredibly beautiful place. And so we have those. So now we have three Learning Centers. Because we still have the one in the Rotary for patients and family members and then—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And that was the Anderson Mayfair.
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. Just for the recorder. (laughter)
Louise Villejo, MPH, MCHES:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so it’s just a beautiful space. And the staff does an amazing job of supporting patients and family members. I mean we get over 30,000 people a year coming into our Learning Centers. And there’s just a tremendous amount of resources available for our patients and family members. So that has really grown over the years as far as the number of people that we see through the Learning Centers. And then now they have programs there. We collaborate. Like I said, we collaborate with everybody. But we collaborate very closely with the myCancerConnection, which used to be the Anderson Network. And they have PIKNIC programs, which is Partners in Caring and Knowledge. I don’t remember exactly. But it’s educational presentations for patients and family members. A lot of times we’ll have it in the Learning Center, so that’s a really great collaboration.
Recommended Citation
Villejo, Louise and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 07: Expanding the Patient Education Office: The Learning Centers" (2015). Interview Chapters. 1522.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1522
Conditions Governing Access
Open
