Volume 24
Number 22
November 1, 2013
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
`` Congratulating Len Schultz (c.) on receiving the 2013 Volunteer Outstanding Achievement Award for his work in the ER are (l. to r.) Heather Matthew, Phil Gaspari, Jennifer Barger, Donna Griffith, Jimmy Pisaturo, and Thea Burke.
Len’s training of ER volunteers is the best I have.
volunteer of the year Each year, Volunteer Services recognizes one person who has gone above and beyond the normal responsibilities of a volunteer. At this year’s annual volunteer celebration, the 2013 Volunteer Outstanding Achievement Award went to Len Schultz. Schultz came to HUP in 2009 but knew he wanted to volunteer here five years earlier, when he was still working fulltime as an engineer. Accompanying his wife to HUP on her “medical sojourns” over the years, he had noticed “an amazing combination of science and humanity. She was treated like a queen when she was here. Now I know that everyone is.”
Inside Changing Times in Nursing.....2 Newest CAREs Grant Winners......................................2 Changing the World One Word at a Time..................3 Aitken Receives Outstanding Engineer Award.........................3 Heartfelt Thanks........................3 Cancer Survivor, Transplant Recipient, Ironman!..................4
His initial volunteer post was as a greeter/transporter at the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine but he wanted to be more a part of the clinical side. His move to the Emergency Room in 2010 turned out to be a perfect fit for both him and the staff. “When Len first came to volunteer in the ER, I thought he’d last two days,” said Jim Pisaturo of Emergency Medicine, kiddingly. “Now we think, ‘Thank God he joined our team!’” Schultz’s responsibilities have grown beyond those of a typical ER volunteer, such as taking patients for tests and bringing blood samples to the lab. He simplified and then rewrote the orientation for ER volunteers and was soon handling the orientation himself. “Len’s training of ER volunteers is the best I have,” said Donna Griffith, director of Volunteer Services. He also joined HUP’s Patient and Family Advisory Council, working on many of its initiatives. One was a task force examining the problem of lost patient belongings. He worked with the ER staff to determine how patient possessions were handled and then made a flow chart of the process (“which is what engineers do!”) to determine what needed to be changed. “So far in FY14, we’ve had only one report of lost items in the ER,” he said, stressing that “hard work by many people solved the problem.” (Continued on page 2)
Dependent Eligibility Audit......4
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volunteer of the year In receiving his award, Schultz said, “I’ve enjoyed my time [in the ER] because of the staff and the institution. I’m proud to be a volunteer at HUP.” The event recognizing Schultz was bittersweet. Griffith announced her retirement following 11 years of service at HUP. “My time with you has been incredible. You have all helped me grow.” Griffith has since retired. When Griffith came to HUP in 2002, the hospital had 25 volunteers. This past year, nearly 1,000 people between the ages of 14 and 80 volunteered their time at HUP in a variety of programs (see sidebar). “We provided 62,500 service hours this year, the equivalent of 30 FTEs,” she said. “It makes me so proud to talk about our many programs.” “Other volunteer directors come here to see Donna’s programs. Both the pre-med and teen volunteer programs get many more applications than openings,” said Mia Gonzales, assistant executive director, Support Services. “Donna is innovative and a visionary. That’s the legacy she leaves.”
Volunteer Programs Partnering with many departments throughout the hospital, Donna Griffith helped to create several volunteer programs during her time at HUP, including:
• Pre-med Volunteer Program • Nursing and Allied Health Volunteer
Program • Musicians on Call • Animal Assisted Therapy (HUP’s Pups) • Patient and Family Advisors Committee • Reiki
Changing Times in Nursing The HUP Nursing School Alumni Association recently donated a display cabinet filled with nursing artifacts that chronicle the evolution of nursing at the hospital. The items include vintage medical equipment, photos, a nurse’s journal dating to 1918, and dolls in historical nursing uniforms made from periodappropriate textiles. Betty Irwin, RN (l.), archive chair of the HUP Nurses Alumni Association, with Candace Stiklorius, RN, Nursing Development, and immediate past president of the Alumni Association, pose with the collection.
Newest CAREs Grant Winners Congratulations to the winners of a Penn Medicine CAREs grant for the first quarter of FY14. Applications for the next round of grants are being accepted through December 1. To learn more, go to http://uphsxnet.uphs.upenn.edu/community and click on “CAREs grant.”
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Name
Department
Entity
Project
JaNeen Cross
Newborn Intensive Care Unit
HUP
Coffee Hour Peer Support Program
Beth Souders
Joan Karnell Cancer Center
PAH
Old Pine Community Center
Angelo Cirrincione
Hall-Mercer
PAH
Learning Through Technology
John C. Flamma, Jr.
Emergency Medicine
PPMC
ED Prescription Drug Assistance Program
Matthew Zarkos
Dermatology
CPUP/PAH
Food for Homeless/Halfway House
Catrena Drake
Penn Medicine Washington Square CCA
Project Well Balanced
Lakeisha Palmer
Health Information Management
PPMC
Gathered Dreamz
Peg Rummel
Patient /Family Services
CORP
Penn Rides: Transportation Assistance for ACC Patients at Hope Lodge
Mia Perry
Photopheresis, Dermatology
HUP
CTCL Community Education Initiative
Deborah Sinni
J. Edwin Wood Clinic
PAH/CCA
Patient Centered Care and Supplies
Sarah Blair Smith
CRM/Social Work
HUP
Increasing Organ Donation Awareness through the Clyde F. Barker Penn Transplant House
Nicole Chaney
Intensive Care Nursery
HUP
HUP’s Safe Sleep Heroes
Natalie Gamble
Nursing Education
PAH
Services for Women with Pregnancies Complicated by Diabetes at Latina Community Health Services
Aitken Receives Outstanding Engineer Award Each year, the Pennsylvania Society for Health Facility Engineering chooses a health facility or biomedical engineer to receive the Donald M. Sauerman Award for outstanding contributions to the field. This year’s winner is Chuck Aitken, an assistant executive hospital director at HUP and director of Physical Plant. `` Mark Thompson (r.), who remained an undiagnosed dyslexic for much of his life, can now read, thanks to the one-on-one efforts of Joseph Oaster and a strong motivation to learn.
Changing the World One Word at a Time
In nominating Aitken for the award, Garry Scheib, HUP’s executive director, wrote, “In his time at Penn, Chuck has stood out as the best in class in facility management. He has demonstrated team development skills, fiscal responsibility, and stand-out operational management at a very complex hospital, a mix of old and new facilities in an environment of constrained resources…. Chuck’s commitment and dedication are appreciated by all who have had the opportunity to work with him. The nursing department recognized him with the ‘Friend to Nursing Advocacy Award,’ and numerous others cite his devotion to improving patient care as remarkable.”
It’s hard to imagine what it’s like to be illiterate in today’s world. So much of our daily lives depends on an ability to read: road directions, medication instructions, emails, texts…the list goes on and on. And yet, more than one in five Philadelphia adults lack these basic skills. Indeed, Philadelphia’s illiteracy rate is 50 percent higher than the national average.
Joe Oaster, senior education analyst in IS, is doing something about it. Every Wednesday night he volunteers his time at the Helping Hand Rescue Mission in a program he created to help adults who cannot read or are reading at a basic or below basic level, as well as those who want to get a GED. He named the program Read Strong for a former student on academic probation Oaster took under his wing. Not only did the student graduate with an associate’s degree, but he went on to get his bachelor’s degree and was going to start a master’s degrees when he died. “He told me, ‘No one treated me like you did.’ The impact on both him and his family was amazing.” Read Strong now has several volunteers who work with Oaster to help others better their lives. Even his own kids are involved, making flash cards for their dad’s student readers. “It’s the best two hours of my week,” he said. “The people there who come to learn want me to come more often, and all the people who come to volunteer once, to ‘check it out,’ end up staying!” Oaster’s outreach combines two of his passions: teaching and literacy. In addition to his job in IS, he is an adjunct professor at a local college and is currently working on his EdD degree in adult education, with a focus on adult literacy. Since starting the program two years ago, Oaster and his fellow volunteers have helped 239 students through more than 400 hours of tutoring.
My moto is: I can change the world, one word at a time.
To learn more about Read Strong, go to www.read-strong.org.
Aitken, who has worked at HUP for more than 20 years, also received the Maryellen Reilly Leadership Award earlier this year. “The key to maintaining a successful facilities environment is having good people work for you, employees who are as dedicated and as committed to HUP as I am,” Aitken said. “No leaders can be successful without great people supporting them. They share my passion.”
Heartfelt Thanks I spent four days in the CICU where the entire staff made my stay more manageable…but I would be remiss if I did not single out and provide a specific thank you to Kelley Lazor, my overnight nurse. I have been in the education profession for over 40 years and I have come to recognize that the most important quality to exhibit when people are uncomfortable, anxious, or concerned is to interact with them in a manner that makes them feel better about their situation. Kelley did just that. She was kind, sensitive, caring and willing to help me in any way needed. If I was in pain, she was there. If I was emotionally down, she was there….Kelley did what she did because she cared. I would venture to suggest that she exhibits the same caring attitude to each of her patients… She made me feel special. There will always be a special place in my heart for her. She is ‘one of a kind’ and one who can make magic happen.
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Soon after the surgery, Derek — who had never been very athletic — decided he wanted to show his gratitude for his third chance at life by training for a 5K race. After he successfully completed that run, he decided he wanted to go further and began to train for the Philadelphia Half Marathon. “All the forgotten memories of what it felt like to be healthy came back to me, and all I wanted to do was feel more,” recalled Derek. Less than a year after his November 2011transplant, Derek completed the Philly half marathon in two hours and 37 minutes. After that victory, he knew he wanted to keep up his training and made the decision, with the support of his care team at Penn, to train for an Ironman competition. The Ironman Triathlon is an annual long-distance race organized by the World Triathlon Corporation, consisting of three events: a 2.4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike race and a 26.2 mile marathon run.
Cancer Survivor, Transplant Recipient, IRONMAN!
Entering the triathlon was a goal he set for himself, but also a promise to honor his donor and donor’s family. “They are heroes, and I try to live a life that’s worthy of their gift,” explained Derek.
“Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.” That was Penn patient Derek Fitzgerald’s motto in the summer of 2010. At the time, he had been through seven years of one health crisis after another. At just 37 years old, he had already survived Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and a failed gall bladder. Now he had found himself suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy — a very serious condition in which the heart is enlarged and weakened and can’t efficiently pump blood through the body.
This past summer, Derek reached his goal. At 40 years old, he became the first American heart transplant recipient to complete the 140.6-mile race in Lake Placid, NY. He is also became the first cancer survivor and heart transplant recipient in the world to complete an Ironman competition.
After battling and winning the fight against cancer several years earlier, Derek’s heart was severely damaged from his cancer treatment. There was no way around it: he needed a heart transplant. Derek came to Penn Medicine for an evaluation and was seen by Mariell Jessup, MD. He was immediately added to the list and underwent a heart transplant procedure, performed by Y. Joseph Woo, MD, in January of 2011.
This month, Derek hopes to make history again by crossing the finish line at Ironman Arizona with four other heart transplant recipients — one of whom is also a Penn heart transplant patient. “Some people just don’t realize what they can do. They’ve been told what they can expect from their lives and never break free from those limitations,” said Derek. “My being here is a gift that I don’t take lightly.” Derek celebrates life every day, and will welcome his first child in January 2014, with his wife, LeeAnn.
Dependent Eligibility Audit At the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS) we are committed to providing affordable health care benefits for all employees and their eligible dependents. One way to ensure we effectively spend our benefits dollars and provide an equal level of benefit to all employees is to verify that we are only paying the expenses of eligible dependents as specified in the UPHS Summary Plan Description. UPHS has decided to partner with Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP) to conduct a Dependent Eligibility Audit. ADP will work as a third-party contractor to verify the eligibility of all dependents covered under a UPHS Health plan. The audit is scheduled to occur from November 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013. In a couple of weeks, ADP will directly correspond with those employees who are currently covering dependents on a UPHS Health plan requesting the documentation necessary to verify eligibility of covered dependents. If you are not covering a dependent on a UPHS Health plan no action is required.
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HUPdate Editorial Staff Sally Sapega Editor and Photographer Trissy Harding Designer
Administration
Susan E. Phillips Senior Vice President, Public Affairs Contact HUPdate at: 3535 Market Street, Mezzanine Philadelphia, PA 19104 phone: 215.662.4488 fax: 215.349.8312 email: sally.sapega@uphs.upenn.edu
HUPdate is published biweekly for HUP employees. Access HUPdate online at http://news.pennmedicine.org/inside/hupdate.