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Support Staff Thank You Week May 9-13
After another eventful year, we want to say “thank you” for showing up each day and giving your best, for stepping up when times were hard and for never giving up. We appreciate you! Please join in these fun activities during Thank You Week to celebrate all you have accomplished this year.
Support Staff Thank You Week May 9-13
After another eventful year, we want to say “thank you” for showing up each day and giving your best, for stepping up when times were hard and for never giving up. We appreciate you!
Please join in these fun activities during Thank You Week to celebrate all you have accomplished this year.
MONDAY 5/9 We Are the Champions - Wear your favorite sports team shirt or jersey with uniform blue scrub bottoms.
TUESDAY 5/10 You Rock our Socks off - Rock a pair of crazy socks for the day.
WEDNESDAY 5/11 Hats Off to our Amazing Staff - Wear a fun hat.
THURSDAY 5/12 Real Heroes Work in Health Care - Wear a superhero shirt and cape with blue scrub bottoms.
FRIDAY 5/13 Team UT Health San Antonio - Show your team spirit in a UT Health issued t-shirt worn with uniform blue scrub bottoms.
» No large brand names or logos allowed.
» No obscene words, gestures or symbols allowed.
» If the shirt is not appropriate for our clinical workplace, the employee will be sent home to change using their PTO.
WEEK-LONG EVENT:
» The UT Health Physicians staff is out of this world! - Decorate your station or work area in an outer space theme and take a photo, ensuring there is no PHI in the photo. Throughout the week, employees are encouraged to send a direct message with photos of their workstations and their outfits to @UTHealthPhysicians on Facebook. Photos will be posted and the workstation with the most “likes” over the week will win a prize.
Download the flyer to share with your colleagues here!
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A message from the Chief Medical Officer: Updated COVID Safety Protocols
Bexar County has maintained a “Low” COVID-19 community-level risk level. With guidance from our infectious disease consultants we have updated the COVID safety protocols for our patient care locations.
Colleagues,
Bexar County has maintained a “Low” COVID-19 community-level risk level on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) matrix. After discussion with our infectious disease consultants, who continue to monitor the situation closely, we are extending the following changes out of an abundance of caution to keep everyone safe:
- Temperature screenings have stopped at all clinical locations. Monitor your symptoms BEFORE you come to work. Stay home when you are sick and notify your supervisor.
- Clinical spaces still require masks to be worn in all areas accessible to patients and visitors. However, masks are now optional to wear in breakrooms and in offices of clinical facilities (areas where patients and visitors are not present). Unvaccinated individuals should consider masking in breakrooms and offices. Physical distancing should still be observed whenever possible.
- Clinical staff and providers may resume in-person meetings and group events. These events should be carefully planned with precautions concerning social distancing and food handling.
- Universal pre-screening through laboratory testing for COVID-19 is no longer necessary as a standard practice for patients undergoing elective outpatient procedures at UTHP.
Chatchawin Assanasen, MD MBA
Interim Chief Medical Officer, UT Health Physicians Ambulatory Services
Professor and CCRI Distinguished Chair in Pediatric Oncology
UT Health San Antonio Joe R. & Teresa Lozano-Long School of Medicine
assanasen@uthscsa.edu
Welcoming the new Chief Nursing Officer at Mays Cancer Center
Gwendolyn Tate, MBA, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, has recently joined the Mays Cancer Center as our chief nursing officer. For the past six years, Gwen has served as a nurse manager for Harris Health System in Houston. She was responsible for developing and implementing staffing plans to increase efficiencies and streamline processes to ensure patients are treated with exceptional care.
Dear Mays Cancer Center community,
It gives me great pleasure to announce Gwendolyn Tate, MBA, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, has recently joined the Mays Cancer Center as our chief nursing officer. For the past six years, Gwen has served as a nurse manager for Harris Health System in Houston. She was responsible for developing and implementing staffing plans to increase efficiencies and streamline processes to ensure patients are treated with exceptional care.
Prior to joining Harris Health System, Gwen was the clinical administrative director of the brain and spine center at MD Anderson Cancer Center. During her time, she oversaw patient care operations including issues related to patient flow, scheduling, customer service and the coordination of clinical research. She also ensured compliance with institutional, Joint Commission and other regulatory agency standards.
Gwen completed her Master of Science in Nursing degree from the Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as a Master of Business Administration from Belhaven University in Jackson, Mississippi. She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana.
In the short time she’s been here, she’s off to a great start integrating herself into the practice by meeting with various teams across the center to learn and review processes and share her expertise. She will continue to develop the organizational structure for nursing at the Mays Cancer Center to provide integrated interprofessional, patient- and family-centered care across hematology and medical oncology, surgical oncology, radiation oncology and cancer medicine specialties. In addition, she will liaise with nursing leaders across UT Health San Antonio where cancer care is delivered. She’s committed to working together as a team and ensuring quality, safety and care coordination within our clinics.
Please join me in welcoming, Gwen!
Sincerely,
Ruben Mesa, MD, FACP
Executive Director
Mays Cancer Center
Mays Cancer Center launching “Everything It Takes” Branding Campaign
The Mays Cancer Center kicks off its multimedia brand campaign “Everything It Takes” next week. The campaign will run through August.
“Everything It Takes” expands on the broader UT Health San Antonio campaign to increase awareness of our services. The campaign features many of our expert Mays Cancer Center providers and care team members. You’ll be able to experience the campaign through print ads in various local publications, on cable TV, digital streaming services, Texas Public Radio, social media and at the airport.
The Mays Cancer Center kicks off its multimedia brand campaign “Everything It Takes” next week. The campaign will run through August.
“Everything It Takes” expands on the broader UT Health San Antonio campaign to increase awareness of our cancer services. The campaign features many of our expert Mays Cancer Center providers and care team members. You’ll be able to experience the campaign through print ads in various local publications, on cable TV, digital streaming services, Texas Public Radio, social media and at the airport.
We’re excited to share this campaign with you, and we want our community to know that we’re doing everything it takes to decrease the burden of cancer through leading-edge patient care and research for San Antonio, South Texas and beyond.
Here’s a snapshot of some of the “Everything It Takes” creative:
Print Ad
TV Commercial
Digital TV
Thank you nurses, we appreciate all that you do
Happy National Nurses Week to all the nurses for delivering expert care and compassionate service every day.
In honor of National Nurses Week, we encourage you to express your gratitude to these outstanding professionals who are committed to quality of care of our patients, their family members, and the community through excellence in leadership, practice, innovation and education.
We are grateful for all of our nurses! Below please find the stories of three of our dozens of nursing team members.
Rhonda Swift, MSN, RN, joined Mays Cancer Center in September 2018 as a primary nurse for the gastroenterology oncology clinic. She said that her parents are her biggest motivator in the care she provides. Swift’s parents were both diagnosed with cancer and lost their battle. It’s important to her to make sure that she treats our patients like they were her own. Swift’s husband played a key role in caring for her father while he underwent treatment and appreciates his involvement with her family’s care. Swift is dedicated to helping the patients and their families through this journey. She understands that cancer is a difficult and frightening path to experience and ensures that she makes herself available emotionally for her patients, as well. Swift said, “They know I am here for them for whatever reason they might need to talk to me.”
Veronica Gonzalez, RN, has been with UT Health San Antonio for two and a half years. Gonzalez’s desire to help others motivated her to become a nurse. Being able to care for and provide compassionate service to patients is very rewarding to her not only professionally, but personally and spiritually, as well. Her biggest motivators are her patients. Gonzalez understands that every patient is unique and that they require special nursing care. Meeting patients’ health care needs is an everyday goal she strives to accomplish. Gonzalez says: “To me, nursing is a very rewarding career. I have the privilege and honor to work with some of the best physicians in the country. The knowledge gained is endless in nursing; there is always something new to learn. But the most rewarding part of my job is knowing that I make a difference in a person’s life by helping them overcome a health crisis.”
Jesus Iracheta, RN, has been a nurse with UT Health San Antonio for 15 years. Jesus takes a lot of pride and finds the most rewarding part of being a nurse is making someone’s day better and helping restore their quality of life. It’s things like seeing and hearing a patient laugh and smile that make him feel rewarded. Jesus said his family and his patients are his biggest motivators, adding, “They motivate me to be a better son, brother, father and nurse.”
CPAN provides real-time behavioral health consultation to pediatric primary care providers
The CPAN system provides real-time psychiatric consultations and helps locate further services tailored to a child’s needs to address the full range of behavioral health issues that youth often experience.
Best of the Best: Nominate UT Health Hill Country
Help us win! Nomination ballots are inside each edition of The Boerne Star newspaper and at UT Health Hill Country. Submit your nomination by April 29.
President’s Forum 2022: University on growth trajectory
The university not only weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, but also experienced significant growth over the last three years, said President William L. Henrich, MD, MACP, at the April 18 President’s Forum. It was the first forum held in person since the onset of the pandemic.
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I-9 employment verification now required in person
The Department of Homeland Security exemption to allow employers to virtually verify employment eligibility (Form I-9) due to the pandemic expires April 30, 2022. · Starting April 18, UT Health San Antonio began verifying employment eligibility for all new hires in person with physical documents. · All employees whose I-9 documents were virtually verified when hired from March 20, 2020 to the present now must provide acceptable employment documents for I-9 verification in person. Employees requiring physical I-9 verification can bring their documents to the HR Office at 7411 John Smith Drive, Suite 500 weekdays from 9 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
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