Houston—Rose Calhoun, RN, M.Ed., director of quality & outcomes at Texas Children’s Health Plan, was recently nominated among the top 150 nurses in the region by the Houston Chronicle. She is one of two Texas Children’s Health Plan nurses to receive the distinguished honor.
An agent for change, Calhoun has been a nurse for 40 years. “My first publication was accepted by the American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing before I received my degree from Texas Women’s University in 1976,” said Calhoun. “I published this article because of the number of infant deaths from receiving inappropriate formula.”
Since then, her contributions to the population health field, featured in a number of prestigious publications, including the Journal of Managed Care Nursing, and The Journal of School Health, have continued to positively influence the lives of thousands of patients and health care practitioners. “Every step that I moved up in nursing was a step away from the bedside but I was impacting more people,” said Calhoun. “It’s a different way of taking care of people but it has more impact.”
For Calhoun, who has won a number of awards throughout her career, this nomination means that “The nurses’ community recognizes the value of nurses participating in population health. I’ve always been a change agent and very committed to the welfare of the children.”
A Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Calhoun employs her leadership and vast expertise to address population health issues at Texas Children’s Health plan. “I’ve put in decades as a nurse, bedside nurse, supervisor, director of nurses, administrator, you name it, I’ve done it,” she said. She also teaches quality and population health to nurses earning their doctorate at The University of Texas Health Science Center. “I still work, I don’t want to retire, I’m having too much fun.”
For more information about Houston Chron’s Salute to Nurses, visit Chron’s website.
About Texas Children’s Health Plan
Texas Children’s Health Plan was founded in 1996 by Texas Children’s Hospital and is the nation’s first health maintenance organization (HMO) created just for children. It offers a primary-care network, specialists and a large hospital network. It now provides dependable health coverage to qualifying children and pregnant women through STAR Kids and STAR Medicaid programs, as well as Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). It has expanded to more than 425,000 members in the Jefferson, Harris and northeast Medicaid rural service areas. For more information on Texas Children’s Health Plan, visit www.TexasChildrensHealth Plan.org.
