Honoring Employees of the Year

CEO John Denardo reminds us of our common purpose to support and champion each other’s efforts to provide the best patient care. Sixty-six Medical Center employees were honored at our annual Class Act Award ceremony.

JOHN DENARDO: People who work in heath care have many ways of recognizing and being recognized for outstanding service and performance. On Friday, April 23rd, 66 Medical Center employees were honored at our annual Class Act Award ceremony. This year Yetra Cain, RN from the Department of Utilization Management and Discharge Planning, was chosen as our Employee of the Year for helping a terminally ill patient realize the dream of becoming a nurse. To read more about Ms. Cain’s nomination, click here.

Class Act awards are given to Medical Center employees who continuously demonstrate exceptional competence, compassion and commitment in their jobs. Caught in the Act awards call out a single act that demonstrates an extra effort. Individuals can be nominated by either patients or employees and this year’s winners included staff members from nursing, environmental services, social work and admissions, but no doubt many other departments could have been represented.

Did you know that right here, at the University of Illinois Medical Center, we have hundreds of board certified physicians that are included in all of our benefit plan options?  You may know that UIMC is one of the nation’s leaders in patient care developments that are changing medicine for the better, including minimally invasive surgery, neurosurgery, living donor transplants, and national recognition in dozens of specialties. And you can access all of this and more when you choose a UIMC physician.

This year, all changes to health care plans need to be made by midnight on May 31, and can be done easily at http://nessie.uihr.uillinois.edu. During open enrollment, you can make changes to your plan enrollments, opt into or out of plans (health and dental), opt into or out of flexible spending accounts (FSAs) or make a change in the dependants on your plan. 

A couple things to keep in mind about the open enrollment period…

Open Enrollment Benefits Fair
Tuesday, May 25th, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Hospital Dining Room A

Did you know that since the inception of the recycling program, the Medical Center has recycled 84,686 pounds of paper and cardboard, and 2,420 pounds of bottles and cans? These are just some of the facts that UIMC’s Practicing Green Healthcare Committee had on display during the recent Earth Day Celebration. This was the Medical Center’s first Green Fair, which highlighted UIMC’s green initiatives. Vendors were on hand to give advice on ways to become greener at work and at home. Employees had the chance to dispose of personal electronics and receive giveaways for participating.

“UIMC’s first annual Earth Day Fair exceeded expectations, not only in vendor and committee support, but with over 500 attendees. This proves that the staff of UIMC is committed to going green,” said Nick Haubach, Co-Chair of the Practicing Green Healthcare Committee.

Changing Medicine. For Good. It’s an easy tagline to say and tell people that is what UIMC is about, but recently the Rehabilitation Department has made national news proving it. Their efforts have helped a little 8-year-old boy find a home and family after he was left with next to nothing.

Reggie Jr. had been living with his father, Reginald Thomas, at a homeless shelter after Thomas lost his job and the apartment that came with it. Thomas was a building superintendent, but above all, a proud and devoted father who was determined to do whatever it took to raise Reggie Jr.

Residents and staff at the shelter marveled at Thomas’s devotion. While sharing a dorm room with six men, the 43-year-old performed tasks for the shelter such as making sure residents got up in time for work. When Reggie Jr. got home from school Thomas instilled a good work ethic and courtesy, teaching his son manners and respect.

On February 10th, Thomas collapsed on the floor shortly after getting his son off to school. He was taken to UIMC where doctors determined he had suffered a major stroke. Thomas couldn’t speak and the right side of his body was paralyzed. Still, his main concern was for his son.

Rhonda Davis, director of the homeless shelter, stepped in and offered to keep Reggie Jr., and a hospital social worker helped solidify the arrangement. But that’s not all hospital staff did.

Moved by Thomas’s story and will, the Rehab Department came together and donated several bags of clothes, toys and other items.

“We basically just adopted them on our unit. Whatever they needed — the little boy or the dad — everybody just instantly wanted to help,” said Lindsey Thompson, Thomas’s speech therapist.

Craig Weaver had no idea that his random act of kindness, and that of a second anonymous donor, would trigger three life-saving kidney transplants for complete strangers.

A few months ago, on a local newscast in his hometown of Georgetown in Northwest Illinois, Weaver heard about a child who needed a bone marrow transplant. The story struck a chord and he decided to become an organ or bone marrow donor to help someone else in need.

After contacting the transplant team at the Medical Center, Weaver began the in-depth evaluation process to become a kidney donor.

The 49-year-old husband and father of three said he was willing to give whatever someone might need.

“I have a thousand reasons why I’m doing this,” said Weaver, “and I can think of only one reason not to.”

After medical and psychological testing cleared Weaver to become a donor, the hospital’s transplant team began the process of determining which patient might be a potential recipient for one of his two kidneys.

Then a second good Samaritan stepped in.

Medical Center patient Chuck Challans, 68, of Homer Glen, was in need of a kidney. His sister was eager to donate, but she was not a viable candidate. After requesting prayers for her brother at church, Challans’ sister was contacted by a fellow parishioner who said she wanted to help.

“We thought she wanted to help with food or something.” said Challans, who had no idea a complete stranger might be willing to donate a kidney to him.

Challans and his donor, who prefers not to be identified, were a suitable match. But the Medical Center’s transplant team offered them another option that would result in three people receiving life-saving transplants instead of one.

Two other patients at the Medical Center desperately needed kidney transplants, but one did not have a suitable donor and the other had a family member who was willing to donate but was not a match.

If all the participants agreed, the three patients would be matched with the best possible donors in what is known as a domino paired exchange.

The first such successful procedure in Illinois was done at the Medical Center in 2006 when two women, who were incompatible donors for their husbands, donated to each other’s spouse.

The transplants with Challans, Weaver and the other patients, performed Feb. 26, involved dozens of doctors, nurses and staff members.

The outcome was a success: the three recipients now have normal renal function and the donors have been discharged from the hospital.

Sickle cell patients, caregivers and community leaders gathered to celebrate the opening of a new Sickle Cell Acute Care Unit and the relocated outpatient clinic Feb. 26.

Sickle cell disease is an inherited, lifelong disease of the red blood cells. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the disease affects 70,000 to 100,000 Americans. Approximately one out of 500 African Americans have sickle cell disease; one out of 12 African Americans is a carrier of the sickle cell trait.

The Medical Center’s Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center has nearly 40 years of experience in managing the disease.

“Chicago has a long and storied history of advances in the understanding and treatment of sickle cell disease, and the University of Illinois has helped write much of that history,” said William Chamberlin, chief medical officer at the Medical Center.

UIC faculty and clinicians from all disciplines have contributed to these advances, from identifying special infections in sickle cell patients to psychological factors associated with the disease.

Many sickle cell patients have experienced pain — a hallmark of sickle cell disease — since they were very young, said Bonnye Johnson, coordinator of community education and outreach at the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center.

A group of 13 clinicians recently traveled nearly two-thousand miles south to provide basic medical care for people living in the remote western villages of Guatemala. The group, organized through the International Emergency Medicine and health fellowship program within the Department of Emergency Medicine at UIMC, included: three emergency medicine residents, two international EM fellows, a cardiology fellow, three emergency medicine attendings, a pediatric attending, and three masters in public health students.

During the ten day trip, the team members saw firsthand the public health challenges associated with developing countries. The clinicians didn’t wait in a central clinic for patients to come to them; instead, they went into their environment. The group was divided into 5 teams offering care in 4 different municipalities throughout San Marcos, Guatemala. Working with local health promoters, the clinicians provided care and addressed some of the common health issues affecting people in the area such as: malnutrition, diarrheal diseases, respiratory infections, skin infections, musculoskeletal complaints, TB/HIV and the emerging problem of chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension.

Collectively, the team has made 20 trips over the years — the past ten to Guatemala. They work with a local organization, today called ‘La Asociacion de los Promotores y Promotoras de Salud San Marcos’. The organization was started 27 years ago by two surgeons/nuns to help bring health care and education to the indigenous people in rural Guatemala. Today, the organization is led by local health promoters with the continued help of these two nuns.

For many, the March trip was the first time they had ever worked or seen an environment like this. Not only did the group get to experience the culture and see the countryside, most importantly they provided health care and experienced the gratitude expressed by appreciative locals. The team members say it was an eye-opening experience, allowing them to learn about themselves while changing medicine for good.

Medical Center Marketing is establishing a YouTube page/channel. We would be happy to load any existing videos you may have that support the Medical Center/patient care brand on this new page. We can accept any of the following files: Windows Media Video (WMV), 3 GP (cell phone), AVI (windows), MOV (mac), MP4 (ipod/psp), MPEG, FLV (adobe flash) or MKV (h.264). For the best quality, videos should follow these guidelines:

• Resolution: 1280x720
• Codec: H.264 or MPEG-2
• Format: FLV, MPEG2, and MPEG-4
• Maximum file size: 2GB
• Maximum video length: 10 minutes

“It’s No Surprise That Some of the City’s Top Doctors Work Alongside Some of the City’s Best Nurses.” That was the message sent to over 390,000 people in March in a special nursing section in the Chicago Sun Times. UIMC’s Marketing Department was able to secure the back page to highlight our top-notch nursing staff.