Valubility of the Month: February 2021

March 11, 2021 • valubility, VOTM

Jackie WilliamsJackie Williams – Faculty Affairs

Jackie displayed outstanding collaboration as she assisted the Chairs with the new Interforlio platform utilized for the end of year performance evaluations and also the Promotion and Tenure Process. She also provided above and beyond assistance with the OKRs into the Interfolio Platform. Jackie not only provided the training but also was willing to schedule and conduct one on one meetings to assist with this new platform. She was thorough in her information and education, and open to accepting different ways of adapting to the new platform. She made herself available after hours and on weekends to meet the deadlines for the evaluations, P&T and OKRs. Jackie is most professional and helpful. She does high quality and outstanding work. She was always asking for clarification and feedback on her work in order to make sure the correct information was entered into the system.

I value Jackie’s contributions and am very appreciative of her tireless efforts assisting with Interfolio.

Nominated by Dr. Janice Knebl for Collaboration


Victor Bernal – HSC Health AdministrationHeads Up

As part of his day to day responsibilities, Victor interacts with people in the clinics and at times, deals with situations with unhappy customers. Victor is always able to offer help and talk to anyone with respect, compassion, care and humility regardless of the difficulty of the situation at hand. He is constantly commended for his professionalism when dealing with these situations.

In addition to that, the clinical practice recently started using Otto – a telehealth tool that allows patients and providers conduct telehealth visits. Given the short planning time, Victor worked diligently with the EMR team, clinics and the vendor (Otto) to ensure a successful implementation of the tool. This included putting in time to set up requirements in NextGen, coordinating with our multiple clinics and working through the break to test and troubleshoot the system with Otto and NextGen teams.

His willingness to always go the extra mile and the consistent respect he shows to others, to help our clinics, clinic staff and in turn, our patients, is why Victor exemplifies our Serve Others First value.

Nominated by Sarah Azam for Serve Others First


Stacy Bednar – Human ResourcesStacy Bednar

Over the past year, I have had the privilege of working with Stacy several times to fill vacant positions. Each time, I am amazed at how hard Stacy works. To her, it’s not just an open position that needs to be filled. To Stacy, this is something that has to be done RIGHT if we are truly going to live our mission, vision, and values at the HSC. Stacy always takes the time to get to know the position and the team. She has done every phone screen, sat in on every interview, attended candidate presentations, and has joined in on consensus. Stacy does not just complete a part of the process; she jumps right in and is a part of the entire process. As a result, we have been able to recruit and hire incredible talent to our teams. Her insight is invaluable, she gives these searches her all, and as a result, our teams and our campuses are better. I am so thankful that we have the opportunity to collaborate with Stacy. I have no doubt there could be a way to fill these positions that could take less time, but Stacy has proven herself to be committed to doing it right- even when the process is long.

Nominated by Dr. Emily Mire for Integrity


Vicki Cannon – HSC HealthVicki Cannon

I have been serving as a vaccine preparedness coordinator of sorts, working with both UNT and HSC to make sure our campuses had what they needed to become approved providers and receive and administer vaccine to our campuses.

I wanted to reach out to you to express my deepest gratitude and most sincere appreciation for Vicki Cannon and the role she has played in this effort. Vicki served as my point person for the HSC campus vaccine prep, but I quickly recognized she was a source of knowledge and experience in all things vaccine related. She and I met regularly to not only ensure she had what she needed for vaccine readiness, but so she could educate and update me on all she had learned in regards to the pandemic provider application process, storage requirements, and so much more. She was the epitome of a team player, sharing lessons learned on her experience with the application which aided the Denton campus in a smoother application process. Vicki also invited the UNT Denton Health Clinic team to not only ask her questions but to witness HSC’s early Covid-19 vaccine clinic to help them review their own clinic processes and plans for best practices. She was always kind, helpful, and such a joy to work with.

Nominated by Janna Morgan, UNT System Office of Facilities, Planning, and Construction for Collaboration


Geriatrics Clinic Team – “Operation Poke”: Saamia Ahmed, Melissa Boggio, Vivian Burke, Vicki Cannon, Tyson Garfield,

Kendra Hale, Barb Harty, Brittany Love, Susan Matthew, Janice Misner, Joanne Mize, Kali Peterson, Sherry Reese, Yvette Roberson, Sarah Ross, Cindy Salazar, Kate Taylor, Isabel Vecino

I would like to nominate the Geriatrics Clinic Team consisting of faculty and staff for Valubility of the Month for their efforts to distribute the COVID Vaccine to our most vulnerable home bound patients who do not have options for going to a vaccine mega center of the health department because of the homebound and dependency status. This effort had to be done within three days and had to take special precautions due to the vaccine requirement for remaining refrigerated and with a short shelf life. Our Geriatrics Clinic Team, under the leadership of Sarah Ross, DO and Kalie Peterson, Clinic Director/Operations manager, the nurse practitioners were deployed as part of our “Operation Poke” into the homes of our 150 home care patients who are normally served by our home care team led by Saamia Ahmed, MD and two nurse practitioner faculty, Kate Taylor DNP and Susan Matthew, FNP. Two nurse practitioners, Barb Harty, GNP and Sherry Reese, FNP, were mobilized to assist with then coverage for their normal clinical activities provided by the geriatricians. The front desk / CSR staff Vivian Burke and Cindy Salazar came in on Saturday with Dr. Ross to organize the schedules and call the homebound patients screening them for symptoms and obtaining permission for the vaccine. The clinic nursing team also got involved and supported the home care team and clinic team to provide some vaccines for clinic patients as available. HSC clinical practice leadership Vicki Cannon assisted through the entire Operation Poke process along with Joanne Mize who obtain the coolers as vaccine carriers. I am so very proud of the geriatrics clinic team for their teamwork and focus on serving others first to be able to immunize our most vulnerable patients during the COVID pandemic, as these patients had no other options to receive the vaccine. As you can tell this team also embodied collaboration, being innovative, displaying respect and showing integrity.

Nominated by Dr. Janice Knebl for Serve Others First