Dr. Karin Price, Chief of Psychology at Texas Children’s Hospital

Summary

Becker’s Healthcare Podcast: In-Depth Summary of Dr. Karin Price’s Discussion on Texas Children’s Hospital’s Response to Texas Flooding

Episode Overview

• Title: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
• Host: Mariah Taylor, Assistant Editor
• Guest: Dr. Karin Price, Chief of Psychology at Texas Children’s Hospital
• Release Date: August 9, 2025
• Duration: Approximately 8 minutes
• Focus: Texas Children’s Hospital’s response to the devastating floods in Texas, emphasizing disaster response strategies, mental health support initiatives, and preparedness models for future climate-related disasters.

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1. Introduction and Immediate Response to Flooding

Host’s Opening Remarks

Mariah Taylor initiates the conversation by highlighting the recent catastrophic flooding in Texas and Texas Children’s Hospital’s pivotal role in aiding affected communities. She seeks to understand the hospital’s immediate actions, the impact on staff, and their on-the-ground involvement.

Dr. Karin Price’s Response

Dr. Price outlines Texas Children’s extensive experience with disaster response, referencing past events like Hurricane Harvey (2017), the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Uvalde school shooting. She emphasizes the importance of a strategic and compassionate response, noting:

“One of the things that we've learned is that there are a lot of very well-meaning people and organizations that jump into help in the immediate aftermath of a disaster... sometimes even to the point of oversaturation.”
— Dr. Karin Price [00:53]

She explains that while immediate support is crucial, overabundance of physical donations can impede relief efforts. Instead, Texas Children’s focuses on providing compassionate support to both the community and their 20,000-strong employee base. This includes aiding staff in communicating about the disaster with their families and patients.

2. Mental Health and Psychological Support Initiatives

Transition to Emotional and Behavioral Recovery

Mariah Taylor shifts the discussion to the longer-term emotional and behavioral recovery necessary post-disaster, probing into the mental health initiatives implemented by Texas Children’s.

Comprehensive Mental Health Strategies

Dr. Price elaborates on various initiatives aimed at supporting children, families, and staff:

• Information Dissemination: Educating the community on how to discuss trauma with children, self-care for parents, coping mechanisms, and recognizing when professional help is needed.

• Immediate Access to Services: Through the Traumatic Stress and Resilience program, Texas Children’s offers trauma and grief services available both in-person and via telehealth at their Houston and Austin campuses.

“We have availability for immediate appointments in person, but also through telehealth, so that families who are impacted have that immediate access to a professional.”
— Dr. Karin Price [03:34]

These measures ensure that affected individuals receive timely psychological support, addressing both immediate and anticipated needs.

3. Preparedness Strategies and Response Protocols for Future Disasters

National Context and Increasing Climate-Related Disasters

Mariah Taylor acknowledges the rising frequency of climate-related disasters, particularly flooding, and inquires about preparedness strategies that Texas Children’s believes could serve as models for other healthcare organizations.

Key Preparedness and Response Strategies

Dr. Price outlines several critical strategies:

• Emergency Outreach Teams: Identifying and designating specific teams to handle emergency responses ensures that regular patient care remains uninterrupted. This involves:

  • Mobile Behavioral Health Units: Texas Children’s utilizes mobile units equipped to provide on-site therapy services, offering a private and stigma-free environment for children and families.

“It really helps to have a mobile team... offering therapy services on site in a private and stigma-free environment.”
— Dr. Karin Price [05:00]

• Community Engagement and Resilience Building: Continuous engagement with the community to foster resilience before disasters strike. This includes establishing communication channels for real-time assessment of community needs across various sectors like schools, places of worship, and community organizations.

• Developmental Approach to Trauma Care: Ensuring that providers are trained to offer trauma and grief care tailored to children of different ages, addressing their unique developmental needs.

• Long-Term Support Planning: Anticipating future challenges, such as children returning to school or camp after a disaster, and preparing strategies to help them cope with ongoing stress and changes in their environment.

“We need to really think about what happens when kids go back to school... how are we going to help children and families cope with the stress that comes with that?”
— Dr. Karin Price [07:00]

These comprehensive strategies aim to maintain continuity of care, support community resilience, and ensure that mental health services can adapt to evolving needs post-disaster.

4. Conclusion and Acknowledgments

Mariah Taylor concludes the interview by thanking Dr. Price for her insights and emphasizing the appreciation from both the communities served by Texas Children’s and the podcast audience for the hospital’s dedicated efforts in disaster response and mental health support.

“Thank you for sharing all the great work that you're doing down there.”
— Mariah Taylor [07:34]

Dr. Price reciprocates the gratitude, underscoring the collaborative efforts involved in supporting affected communities.

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Key Takeaways

• Strategic Disaster Response: Texas Children’s Hospital employs a balanced approach between immediate compassionate support and long-term strategic planning to avoid resource oversaturation.

• Comprehensive Mental Health Support: The hospital provides extensive mental health services, accessible both in-person and virtually, catering to the immediate and ongoing psychological needs of children, families, and staff.

• Model Preparedness Strategies: Identification of emergency outreach teams, utilization of mobile behavioral health units, continuous community engagement, and a developmental approach to trauma care are pivotal in Texas Children’s preparedness model.

• Community Resilience Building: Proactive efforts in fostering community resilience and establishing robust communication channels are essential for effective disaster response and recovery.

This episode provides valuable insights into effective disaster response mechanisms within the healthcare sector, highlighting the importance of preparedness, mental health support, and community collaboration in navigating the challenges posed by natural disasters.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm Mariah Taylor, assistant editor, and I'm thrilled to be interviewing Karen Price, chief of psychology for Texas Children's Hospital, on the podcast today. Karen, thank you so much for joining me. Now, as probably all of our listeners have heard, there's been some pretty devastating flooding down there in Texas. And I know Texas Children's has been really on the forefront of trying to help those communities as they both recover from what's happening and process everything that's gone down in these communities. And I really just want to kind of understand what you all have been seeing in the last few weeks after these floods hit. So can you share a little bit about kind of what you've all been doing in these initial weeks from your perspective, kind of services, the way your staff have been impacted and then how you've been involved on the ground?

[B]

Absolutely. So, unfortunately, we here at Texas Children's have had experience with disaster response, thinking about Hurricane Harvey Back in 2017, of course, with the COVID 19 pandemic and then the school shooting here in Uvalde, Texas, we've had the opportunity to really think through our strategy and think through the best way to impact our community and to share information. So one of the things that we've learned is that there are a lot of very well meaning people and organizations that jump into help in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, which is wonderful, but sometimes even to the point of oversaturation. And we definitely saw this with the Central Texas flooding where the different community organizations needed to ask people to stop sending physical donations and stop kind of coming into the counties because it was impeding the relief efforts. And so really what we have learned at Texas Children's is that that's the time that we need to spend first really having an immediate response of compassion and support for the community, but also really for our employees here in Houston at Texas Children's Hospital, we have about 20,000 employees, some of whom were directly impacted and some of whom are figuring out how to talk with their children and their friends and their neighbors about what happened. And some of them are trying to figure out how to talk with their patients who are coming to see them about what happened. So our first immediate response is to share our compassion and support for the community and then to really make sure that we are sharing education and resources, whether that's through the media or through live presentations on social media. Sometimes it is doing education with our medical partners and our pediatrician partners who are on the front lines of seeing lots and Lots of kids every day. And the idea is that we spend some time partnering with community organizations and having discussions about the needs on the ground, both immediate and anticipated. That way, after many other resources are redirected and as life gets back to normal for those who aren't immediate, immediately impacted, we want to be there to fill the gaps and address the needs in the long run.

[A]

Perfect. Now, while physical rebuilding is underway, I know that the emotional and kind of behavioral recovery process can span quite a bit of a longer time frame. What mental health or psychological support initiatives has your system implemented to help families and staff navigate this phase?

[B]

So one thing we've been doing, as I mentioned, is just spreading a lot of information about how to talk with children who have experienced experience this trauma, how parents can take care of themselves as they support their children, how we can talk to our patients and talk to our neighbors and our community members about coping skills, how to know what responses children might have that are typical or normal for somebody that's gone through a trauma, and what are some signs that a child might need professional help. We then have offered immediate availability for trauma and grief services through our Traumatic Stress and Resilience program here in Houston, as well as at our Austin campus. We have availability for immediate appointments in person, but also through telehealth, so that families who are impacted have that immediate access to a professional. So all of that is really about what our response has been to date, but it's also anticipating the different things that are coming up and planning for those things ahead of time. Perfect.

[A]

And then kind of looking at the broader nation, I think we've all seen kind of an increase of these sorts of climate related disasters, and it feels like flooding particularly is much more common. So what preparedness strategies or response protocols from your system do you believe could help serve as a model for other healthcare organizations?

[B]

I think the first thing we've done is really identify teams and team members who are available to be part of that emergency outreach. What happens is if you're in a busy professional place like we are, everybody's schedules are full to the brim. We're always working hard to ensure access to all of our services. But if you don't have an emergency outreach team, what ends up happening is when you do have a crisis, you're pulling people away from their regular patient care activities. And so in order to have that availability for fast response, you need to have people identified as being on emergency outreach teams. It really helps to have a mobile team. For example, here at Texas Children's, we Have a mobile behavioral health unit, a vehicle that can travel to different locations and offer therapy services on site in a private and stigma free environment. So those things are really important ahead of time to make sure that you have those people identified and that those providers have the right expertise in providing trauma care, providing grief care, and making sure that they're having the correct developmental approach to helping kids of different ages to deal with these very difficult issues. The other thing I would say is that we need to really be engaging with our community in a continuous way in terms of building community resilience ahead of disasters. And related to that, really building communication mechanisms for us to gather real time information about needs that might be occurring, whether that is in schools or school districts, whether that's in place, places of worship, community organizations, different camp associations have been reaching out to us. Really thinking about what happens when children and camp counselors who are at camp now sort of leave what they call their camp bubble and come back into the real world and have to deal with all of the information that we are having shared with us on a daily basis. That's truly heartbreaking and tragic. I think we need to think about what happens when kids go back to school. And for those that are directly impacted, maybe some of their classmates are not there or they are interacting with siblings of children that passed away or families that have been directly impacted. And then down the line thinking about even next year when it's time for kids to go away to camp, how are we going to help children and families cope with the stress that comes with that?

[A]

Some really good advice. Well, thank you so much for being here today and sharing everything you all are doing there at Texas Children's. I know your communities have definitely appreciated your support and we here appreciate you sharing all the great work that you're doing down there. So thank you for joining me on the podcast today.

[B]

Thank you.