Impact December 2016

UTMB Newsletter • DECEmBER 2016

OB Services improvement team ensures patient safety, Best Care Spotlight on Toby Boenig, chief compliance officer Introducing UTMB Discover: Turning data into opportunities

Bringing creative energy to UTMB’s Campus Store

UTMB Police Officer Hector Martinez designed a special challenge coin which was selected to commemorate The University of Texas System Police’s 50th anniversary (1967-2017). The coin’s design includes the UT System Police badge on one side, with the UT Tower and the number 50 on the other side. The UT Tower symbolizes the active shooter event of Aug. 1, 1966, on the UT Austin campus. The creation of the UT System Police came in the wake of the mass shooting, which killed 16 people and wounded 32 others. Today, the UT System Police deploy 567 sworn police officers and 900 civilian staff members across Texas and at 14 institutions to fulfill its original mandate to protect life and property. Officer Martinez has been at UTMB for nearly two years and enjoys doing graphic art and photography in his spare time. “The UT System Police are especially proud of the skilled artistry demonstrated by Officer Martinez, for these coins will be circulated across the United States during our anniversary year,” said UTMB Police Chief Tom Engells. Martinez was selected as the UT System Police Featured Officer of the Month for December.

Mental health staff with UTMB Correctional Managed Care’s Region 1 North were recognized during their fifth annual Training Day in Gatesville on Oct. 5. Annual awards included “Above and Beyond,” presented to William Hull, “Creative Therapy” to Joel Chandler, “First Responder” to Whitney Weaver, “Houdini” to Christopher Ginn, “In Spite of” to Yahaira DeLaRosa, “Iron Chef” to Sigrid Teague-Cobb, “Mission Impossible” to Kathy Brady, “Rookie of the Year” to Tinalee De Costa, and “Servant Leader” to Robyne Roberts. Dr. Joseph Penn, director of Dr. Joseph Penn Mental Health Services; Beverly Echols, administrative director of Mental Health Services; Dr. Billy Shelton, senior psychologist at Skyview; Joe Simental, senior mental health manager; and Amanda Vasquez, manager, Texas Correctional Office on Offenders with Medical and Mental Impairments, all gave presentations during the training session.

A team from the Provost’s Office and Marketing and Communications received a prestigious national award for their collaboration on the new UTMB provider directory, https://doctors.utmbhealth.com. The site, which features provider information, locations and consumer reviews, won a silver award from the eHealthcare Leadership Awards for “Best Doctor Directory.” The collaborative project was recognized at a special presentation in Las Vegas on Nov. 9 during the 20th Annual Healthcare Internet Conference. Members of the core team included Kanimozhi Chinnapayah, Kumudini Mandava, Uday Pachalla and Mark Schultze from the Provost’s Office, and Mike Cooper, Melissa Harman and Pep Valdes from Marketing and Communications.

Donna Sollenberger, UTMB executive vice president and CEO, Health System, has been named in Becker’s Hospital Review 2016 list of “135 nonprofit hospital and health system CEOs to know.” The men and women on this list lead some of the largest, most successful and prominent nonprofit health care organizations in the country.

Congratulations to Dr. Allan Brasier and Rakez Kayed, PhD, whose Sanofi iAwards proposals were selected for funding. Brasier and Kayed will each receive $125,000 in seed funding this year and were among 20 funding requests chosen from more than 190 submissions. Sanofi iAwards were created in 2015 to identify and help develop innovative and translational research proposals that could lead to the development of effective and safer therapeutic Brasier Kayed solutions for patients. UTMB was the sole University of Texas System institution to receive funding this year. Brasier is a professor in Internal Medicine and director of the Institute for Translational Sciences and the Sealy Center for Molecular Medicine. Kayed is an associate professor in Neurology.

A friendly competition between UTMB’s Police Department and Research Services/Grants and Contracts Accounting during the UT System “Walktober” event kept employees moving in October. Research Services/GCA employees held a potluck lunch and award ceremony on Nov. 14, where the winning team was announced. Research Services took home the first place trophy, with their 46 participants each averaging 391,789 steps over the 31-day challenge. UTMB Police came in at a close second, with their 19 participants each averaging 389,109 steps. Great work keeping employee health a top priority and building comradery with other areas on campus!

Connie Barton and Lt. David DeOre “fight” over the first-place trophy.

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From the President I’d like to wish you and your family a happy and healthy holiday season as we come to the conclusion of another calendar year, one that has been historically significant for UTMB in many ways.

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Your hard work and commitment this past year and in the many previous years were catalysts for UTMB to open the Jennie Sealy Hospital on our Galveston Campus and the League City Campus Hospital—among many other accomplishments—during our 125th year as an institution. I’d like to personally thank you for all you’ve done to improve the lives of others and for your continued contributions to UTMB’s vital and important missions.

Best Care in Action: OB Services improvement team

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This issue of Impact features stories that exemplify who we are and where we’re headed in the future: • A Day in the Life of Edwina Moore, a creative and energetic UTMB Campus Store clerk • A profile of Toby Boenig, vice president and chief compliance officer • A closer look at Best Care in Action, spotlighting UTMB’s multidisciplinary OB Services improvement team

Day in the life of a UTMB Campus Store clerk

• An introduction to UTMB Discover, an enterprise data warehouse focused on turning data into opportunities

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• An inside look at the Employee Advisory Council’s visit with CMC employees at the Huntsville Pharmacy and Polunsky Unit • A research study that offers new insight into how Alzheimer’s disease begins • Tips for safe online holiday shopping by Bob Shaffer, director of UTMB’s Office of Information Security • Numerous accomplishments and kudos in the Working Wonders column and throughout the newsletter

Spotlight on Toby Boenig

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Please take some time to enjoy this latest issue, reflect on our very successful 2016 and look ahead to a new year, when we will continue working together to work wonders.

Thank you!

Introducing UTMB Discover

Dr. David L. Callender UTMB President

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Impact is for and about the people who fulfill UTMB’s mission to improve health in Texas and around the world.

We hope you enjoy reading this issue. Let us know what you think!

ON THE COVER: UTMB Campus Store clerk Edwina Moore stands next to some of the newest apparel to arrive at the shop, which is located on the first floor of the Moody Medical Library, Galveston Campus. Opened as a traditional bookstore in the 1940s, the store has transformed into an all-encompassing university shop offering more than textbooks. As an independent university store under Auxiliary Enterprises, its proceeds benefit UTMB’s student population.

P rinted by U T MB graphic design & P rinting S ervices

Vice President Marketing & Communications Steve Campbell

Contact us Email: impact.newsletter@utmb.edu Phone: (409) 772-2618

Associate Vice President Marketing & Communications Mary Havard

Campus mail route: 0144 U.S. Postal address: UTMB Marketing & Communications

301 University Boulevard

Galveston, TX 77555-0144

Editors KirstiAnn Clifford Stephen Hadley Art Director Mark Navarro

Bes t c ar e

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Providing safe and effective patient care is the top priority for UTMB’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

document it, the coder can’t code it properly. We have a saying: ‘If it wasn’t documented, it wasn’t done.’”

So when they learned UTMB would face penalties of $2.5 million—due to new state rules for Medicaid reimbursement regarding Obstetrical cases for potentially preventable complications (PPCs)—it surprised many.

“The reason we are all at UTMB is because we believe in the care we give and the system that we have set up,” said Dr. George Saade, chief of Obstetrics and Maternal Fetal Medicine.

“We are a tertiary care center that receives all the complicated cases for a reason, and that’s what we have dedicated our careers to.

As soon as we heard there may be a problem with potentially preventable complications, we wanted to fix it right away.”

Saade and Dr. Gary Hankins, chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, worked with Mark Kirschbaum, RN, PhD, chief quality, safety and clinical information officer, to quickly convene a multiprofessional group including OB/GYN physicians, Quality Management staff and coders.

Moving forward, the OB Services improvement team established a real-time documentation review process for potentially preventable complications, implemented Epic optimizations and trained faculty to reduce documented OB complications dramatically in a year’s time. The result: UTMB has gone from having incurred complication penalties of $2.5 million in 2014 and 2015, to none, as of Sept. 1.

The OB Services improvement team was recognized during a Health System Leadership Team meeting for both making a difference and exemplifying for others involved in the Best Care effort what is possible through principled effort. (L-R) Jill Bryant-Bova, Dr. George Saade, Samantha Russell, Dr. Gary Hankins, Marlo Cochran, DNP; and Mark Kirschbaum, PhD. (Not pictured) Christine Capitan, Dr. Carlos Clark, Stephanie Everling, Amy Fertitta, Deb Mordecai, Dr. Mary Munn, Heather Pritchard, Dr. Anna Rodriguez, Brenda Thomas and Jennifer Zirkle.

The first answer everyone wanted to determine was whether there were any actual safety issues or inappropriate care administered. In less than a month, the group conducted a review of more than 60 patient charts and found that the main problem revolved around clinical documentation, not direct patient care.

“We quickly validated that we didn’t have a clinical problem,” said Kirschbaum.

“Our moms were receiving good care, but we weren’t taking the credit. That’s because the complexity of the patient wasn’t always listed in their documentation for billing and coding staff to accurately report encounters.”

For instance, if existing conditions aren’t documented before a patient is admitted, it may be counted against the hospital that billed the encounter. In the case of OB, the most common complication coded was hemorrhage. However, when the multidisciplinary OB Services improvement team dug a bit deeper, they found many women who experienced expected blood loss were not actually having clinically significant hemorrhages.

“In some cases, women may have arrived anemic and received a blood transfusion. But because their anemia was not documented when they were admitted, coders assumed the blood transfusion was the result of a hemorrhage,” said Jill Bryant-Bova, senior quality management specialist. “The coder is coming in behind and reading the medical record as it is stated. If the physician doesn’t

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“I am astonishingly proud,” said Kirschbaum.

“The rallying cry was very effective and the respect at the table was high. When Drs. Saade or Hankins were speaking, everyone listened because we don’t understand clinical issues the way they do. When the coder was speaking, everyone listened to their expertise.

It was interdisciplinary, respectful and every idea brought to the table was worth considering. It really did take a village.”

Saade emphasized that while fixing documentation was important, ensuring patient safety and providing Best Care was the No. 1 priority.

“It’s really all about the patient,” said Saade. “Our first reaction was about our patients, not the documentation. The fact that PPCs are being tracked and we continue to review charts—it’s for the patient’s safety. I feel very ecstatic about UTMB’s response. It’s unique to have a place where an interprofessional group can meet frequently and work together to address an issue. Sometimes these meetings took hours, but it didn’t matter how much time it took because we wanted to make sure we were providing the best care possible.”

He added that the focus on patient safety in OB/GYN is not limited—several members of the team have also been reviewing and tracking other potential complications, such as infectious morbidity, and analyzing patient safety event reports that may uncover areas for improvement. There has also been work on OB potentially preventable readmissions.

Bryant-Bova said she is proud to have been involved in making a change and that she looks forward to sustaining Best Care.

“We ultimately made improvements in the quality of care that we are providing to patients,” she said. “This is a positive step and I’m sure we can transfer what we learned here into different departments and areas of UTMB.”

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State-of-the-art automated devices sort medications at high speed at UTMB CMC’s central pharmacy in Huntsville.

Employee Advisory Council visits CMC employees at Huntsville Pharmacy, Polunsky Unit B y K irsti A nn C lifford

Employee Advisory Council members got a closer look at how the Texas prison population receives medications and health care during a recent visit with UTMB Correctional Managed Care employees in Huntsville and Livingston on Oct. 17.

The day started with a tour inside UTMB CMC’s central pharmacy in Huntsville, which provides pharmaceutical services to adult and juvenile correctional facilities throughout the state of Texas. EAC members had the opportunity to hear about the successes and challenges that the 135 pharmacy employees face while working to dispense thousands of prescriptions on a daily basis.

“It’s very busy here because we have 128 prison facilities and 154,000 patients that we provide services for,” said Bill Toney, assistant director with UTMB CMC Pharmacy Services. “For perspective, we dispense more than 19,000 prescriptions a day—while a busy Walgreens might do 1,000 per day.

We’ve got fantastic staff and automated technology that make it all possible.”

EAC members watched as state-of-the-art automated devices packaged and sorted medications at high speed. The technology has helped staff keep up with the high volume and has eliminated the need for pharmacists to perform a “final check” of medications before they are distributed. That has allowed pharmacists to spend more time focusing on in-depth, prospective medication profile review and working directly with providers to improve pharmacotherapy.

Implementation of automated final product check began in 1997 and resulted in a 187 percent increase in clinical interventions (identification of potential drug related problems and recommended improvements to therapy) while ensuring a 99.99 percent dispensing accuracy rate. Automation has led to significantly improved processing capacity and overall improved patient safety and outcomes.

“The technology is fantastic, but as someone at a receiving unit, we don’t think about technology—we think about all the invaluable services we receive from pharmacy staff every day,” said Robert Dalecki, EAC member and CMC Region 2 director of operations. “Besides making sure medications show up at our facilities each day like clockwork, they also review orders and provide tens of thousands of interventions. Clinical pharmacists also are available to come out into the field and help us do audits and other tasks.”

Janet Gonzalez, an assistant director of clinical programs and former EAC member, has worked for UTMB CMC Pharmacy Services for more than 19 years, and has enjoyed various roles, from working directly with patients to help manage their drug therapy, to developing evidence-based disease management guidelines to promote safe and effective care.

“When I was a pharmacy clinical practice specialist, I particularly enjoyed educating patients about their drug therapy and seeing them achieve their therapeutic goals,” she said. “My role has changed but I still find satisfaction in working with others to contribute to making improvements in our health care delivery. The UTMB CMC Pharmacy Department and CMC as a whole work together to provide the best patient care possible, and it is great to be a part of a system that promotes the same.”

Following the pharmacy tour in Huntsville, EAC members drove an hour east to the Polunsky Unit in Livingston. The facility houses about 2,900 offenders—including more than 230 who are on death row.

Nearly 50 UTMB CMC employees provide medical, dental and mental health services at the unit, which includes a 17-bed infirmary with 13 assisted-living beds, two respiratory isolation rooms and two mental health observation rooms.

They also coordinate appointments at UTMB TDCJ Hospital Galveston for offenders who need specialty care.

EAC members observed staff conduct a Weekly Relay meeting and discussed the challenges they face every day, such as providing health care during “lockdown” periods, and caring for an aging prison population.

“We play an important role because our patients need a lot of care,” said Denise Church, a correctional clinical associate. “We are here to be an advocate for them and help them get the medical care they need—at our clinic, at Hospital Galveston or otherwise.”

Senior Practice Manager Anitra Lindley said her staff is loyal and dedicated to providing the best health care to patients.

EAC members visit with UTMB CMC employees at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston. impact

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“We see about 150 patients on a daily basis, so we are a busy group,” she said. “The seamless flow of the clinic is actuated by seasoned personnel that are passionate about medical care for an underserved population.”

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UTMB study offers new insight into how Alzheimer’s disease begins B y D onna R amirez

A new UTMB study offers important insight into how Alzheimer’s disease begins within the brain. The researchers found a relationship between inflammation, a toxic protein and the onset of the disease. The study also identified a way that doctors can detect early signs of Alzheimer’s by looking at the back of patients’ eyes.

“Early detection of Alzheimer’s warning signs would allow for early intervention and prevention of neurodegeneration before major brain cell loss and cognitive decline occurs,” said lead author Ashley Nilson, a neuroscience graduate student. “Using the retina for detecting Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases would be non-invasive,

inexpensive and could become a part of a normal screening done at patient checkups.”

UTMB researchers have previously found evidence that a toxic form of tau protein may underlie the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Brain cells depend on tau protein to form highways for the cell to receive nutrients and get rid of waste. In some neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, the tau protein changes into a toxic form called tau oligomers and begins clumping into neurofibrillary tangles. When this happens, molecular nutrients can no longer move to where they are needed and the oligomers produce toxic effects, leading to the eventual death of the brain cells.

RESEAR C H B R I E F S Compiled from press releases written by Donna Ramirez, Christopher Smith Gonzalez and Kurt Koopmann. Find out more at www.utmb.edu/newsroom.

UTMB is the winner of a Grand Challenges Explorations grant, an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The $100,000 grant will help Alejandro Castellanos-Gonzalez, PhD, assistant professor at UTMB, and his team pursue an innovative global health and development research project aimed at defining targets for drug development against a diarrhea-causing parasite. Diarrhea kills approximately 2,000 children every day and is the second leading cause of death among children under the age of 5, Castellanos-Gonzalez said. Recent studies have indicated that the infection caused by the intestinal parasite Cryptosporidium is one of the most prevalent causes of diarrhea in the world. There are no optimal treatments against this parasite, and the scientific community has concluded the lack of methods to study gene function in this microorganism is slowing development of novel drugs against the parasite. Castellanos-Gonzalez has developed a novel method to silence genes in Cryptosporidium by using complexes of protein with slicer activity and small interfering RNA.

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In this project, Castellanos-Gonzalez’s research team will identify and validate targets in Cryptosporidium with the objective of defining the optimal targets for drug development against this debilitating parasite. “This project has the potential to help people around the world,” Castellanos-Gonzalez said. “We are proud to have been selected for funding by the Grand Challenges Explorations to do this important work.”

New research from UTMB, in collaboration with Southwest University in Chongqing, China and the University of Leuven in Belgium, has pointed to a way to replicate the basic structure of the Zika virus, stripping it of the genes that make the virus infectious.

The replicon system research was spearheaded by Xuping Xie, PhD, and recently published in EBioMedicine.

Replicons are segments of viral genome that can replicate on their own, independent of the cellular chromosome. The new Zika replicon system has deleted some of the genes that give the virus its structure. Because of this, the altered Zika virus is no longer infectious, lowering the safety risk involved in working with it. “One of these replicons can be used to locate portions of the viral molecule that block or halt viral replication,

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“Early detection of Alzheimer’s warning signs would allow for early intervention and prevention of neurodegeneration before major brain cell loss and cognitive decline occurs.”

It’s becoming increasingly clear that inflammation within the brain plays an important role in Alzheimer’s development and progression. Inflammation and loss of connections between nerves within the brain happen before the formation of the tangles that are characteristic of this disease. It’s possible that the tau oligomers may be responsible for this inflammation.

In a recent paper in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, UTMB’s research team detailed their investigation on the relationship between inflammation, toxic tau and Alzheimer’s onset by performing systematic analyses of brain and retina samples from people with Alzheimer’s and a mouse model of Alzheimer’s.

making it a powerful tool for vaccine development,” said senior author PeiYong Shi, PhD, a professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology. The replicon system was engineered by attaching genes that allow researchers to tag certain parts of the virus they are interested in. Luciferase, the chemical that gives fireflies their signature glow was used to make targeted viral components light up—making processes like replication much easier to observe. The recent Zika virus outbreak has highlighted the urgent need to establish genetic tools for studying how the virus multiplies and causes disease within a newly infected person in order to develop countermeasures. Other authors include UTMB’s Xuping Xie, PhD; Jing Zou, PhD; Chao Shan, PhD; Yujiao Yang and Dieudonné Buh Kum. Kai Dallmeier, PhD, and Johan Neyts, PhD, from the University of Leuven in Belguim were co-authors.

Yujiao Yang is also affiliated with Southwest University in China.

Between 2009 and 2012, the number of young women in the United States completing the human papillomavirus vaccine series doubled. In the same period of time, HPV infections were nearly cut in half. “These highly encouraging results suggest that the number of HPV-related cancers and genital warts will markedly decrease in the U.S. over time,” said Dr. Abbey Berenson, director of UTMB’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Women’s Health.

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The results demonstrated that the toxic tau may induce inflammation in Alzheimer’s. The toxic tau spreads between connected brain regions, which may initiate inflammation in these new regions. This situation can create a cycle of toxic tau, inflammation and cell death throughout the brain over time.

Beyond determining eye health and corrective lens prescriptions, having an eye exam can alert health care professionals of several different health conditions, including diabetic complications, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Now, UTMB researchers found that retina tissue they studied can show evidence of toxic tau and inflammation.

“Our findings suggest that the degeneration of nerve cells due to chronic inflammation induced by the tau oligomers may be combated through the combination of anti-tau oligomer and anti-inflammatory therapeutics for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and related diseases,” said senior author Rakez Kayed, PhD, associate professor in the UTMB Department of Neurology. “Our lab is continuing to expand our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases.”

The authors include a team of collaborative scientists and physicians including UTMB’s Kelsey English, Julia Gerson, PhD; T. Barton Whittle, C. Nicholas Crain, Judy Xue, Urmi Sengupta, Diana Castillo-Carranza, PhD; Wenbo Zhang, PhD; and Praveena Gupta, PhD, OD. The work was supported by the UTMB Mitchell Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, the University of Texas System Neuroscience and Neurotechnology Research Institute and Retina Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health.

Berenson was the lead author in a study, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, where researchers at UTMB found that in the years 2009 and 2010, 15.4 percent of U.S. females 18 to 26 years old were infected by at least one of the four vaccine-type strains of HPV. In the years 2011 and 2012, the number infected dropped to 8.5 percent. The quadrivalent HPV vaccine offers protections against four strains of the virus: two strains that cause genital warts and two strains that cause cancer. These findings complement other reports on the decline of HPV infections among vaccine-eligible populations. The present study used national survey and genotyping data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to uncover an impressive drop in vaccine-type HPV prevalence in a short period of time. However, Berenson said there is still more health care providers can do to make sure more women are able to get the vaccine.

In addition to Berenson, the other two authors of the study are two former UTMB researchers Mahbubur Rahman, MBBS, PhD, now at the Center for Clinical Epidemiology at St. Luke’s International University in Tokyo, and Tabassum Laz, MBBS, PhD, now with Research and Consulting Services in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

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Edwina Moore is full of creative energy when it comes to keeping UTMB’s Campus Store exciting and fresh.

“I love new ideas,” she says as she hops into the Galveston shop’s glass display window and starts arranging holiday-themed décor.

It’s a Thursday morning in mid-November, and Moore, a UTMB Campus Store clerk, is getting into the holiday spirit.

“We’ll switch out the display window twice this month to keep things new and festive,” she adds, while hanging a large ornament from the window. impact impact

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It’s clear that Moore enjoys her job. She’s enthusiastic and motivated, and customers and co-workers alike can’t help but smile when she engages in conversation.

Originally hired as a temp—first with Environmental Health and Safety, then Parking and the Campus Store—she transitioned to a permanent position with the Campus Store in 2015 and couldn’t be happier.

“I immediately took a liking to everything here and acted like a sponge, absorbing everything there is to learn about how the store runs,” Moore says. “When a full-time position opened up, I jumped at the opportunity.”

The UTMB Campus Store first opened as a traditional bookstore in the 1940s and was initially located in Old Red. Today, it’s on the first floor of the Moody Medical Library, where it has been transformed into an all-encompassing university shop, offering much more than just textbooks. UTMB gear and memorabilia, computer and office supplies, apparel, backpacks, gift items, snacks and much more fill the space. As an independent university store under Auxiliary Enterprises, its proceeds benefit UTMB’s student population.

Moore has already helped implement several innovative projects at the store, including a newly developed website, https:// bookstore.utmb.edu/, which has been popular among alumni, long distance students and UTMB employees on the mainland.

The website also has a link to a new department order site that helps UTMB departments order marketing materials, uniforms, clothing and other items. (About 25 percent of all sales come from UTMB department purchases).

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When she’s not busy helping customers, ordering or stocking merchandise, Moore can be found taking pictures and editing photos of new apparel to post to the updated website.

“When we first started, we had maybe 20 items on the website and the pictures were kind of dark, but we’ve improved on what we can offer,” says Moore. “Everything we can get on the web, we do. It allows distance employees, students and alumni who have come and gone the ability to get UTMB apparel without having to drive to Galveston.”

I observe Moore’s multi-tasking skills in action as she finishes

editing a photo of a long-sleeve shirt and quickly turns her attention to a customer who needs help finding a retirement gift for a colleague. As soon as she finishes that transaction, the phone rings and Moore switches gears to assist a School of Medicine student with ordering custom embroidery for a UTMB jacket.

Then, without missing a beat, she picks up our conversation where we left off, describing a new convenient service for employees who work off the island: UTMB Campus Store “popup” shops.

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If you work at the Angleton Danbury or League City Campuses, there’s a high probability that you will run into Moore soon— she’s scheduled several pop-up shops over the coming months and will bring products from in-store to both campuses.

“We had a situation recently where an employee at ADC ordered scrubs, we shipped them, she tried them on and they didn’t fit, sent them back to us, and then we shipped out another size and hoped it would work. The whole process took about a month,” says Moore. “With the pop-up shops, we bring our products directly to employees. They can try on apparel right there to ensure the right fit. We went to ADC and LCC recently and got great feedback, so we’ll bring more requested items when we go next time.”

UTMB seal T-shirt and polos the same, but everything else, we try to change up, whether it’s the color or design. We try to keep it exciting for people when they come in—and keep them wanting to come back. So, hitting competitive price points and having a variety of exciting items is a must.”

While many customers use the bookstore on occasion for buying print and digital text books or ordering graduation caps and gowns, Moore and the campus store team is working to build a bigger base of regular customers. In 2016, they launched a rewards program which allows anyone to earn Rewards Bucks for most purchases, and they are getting more involved in the UTMB community by hosting events, such as a recent student study break during finals, which included a big foam board coloring wall and a therapy dog.

It offers much more than just textbooks. UTMB gear and memorabilia, computer and office supplies, apparel, backpacks, gift items, snacks and much more fill the space. As an independent university store under Auxiliary Enterprises, Campus Store proceeds benefit UTMB’s student population.

Moore flips through a catalog to show me some of the winter apparel that should be arriving soon. She likes to keep up with fashion trends and order popular styles for the store.

“I love ordering because I get to look at so many different styles and talk to students and employees about what they like and what’s popular for them right now,” says Moore. “We keep our

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“It was a lot of fun and it helped students relieve stress and not think about exams for a little while,” says Moore. “We have some great students—some of them I know by name and have built relationships with since the time they arrived at UTMB and bought their first textbooks, to when they ordered their caps and gowns and walked across the stage at graduation. It’s so great to see them reach their goal.”

I say goodbye to Moore as she starts tagging and restocking white coats.

After spending half the day among colorful UTMB merchandise, it’s hard to leave empty-handed. I purchase a UTMB sweatshirt blanket to keep warm during Houston’s short-lived winter and Moore entices me to come back again soon.

“We have some new shipments coming in—it’ll be spring before you know it!”

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l e a d er s potlight

Spotlight on Toby Boenig, vice president and chief compliance officer Tobin (Toby) Boenig is responsible for planning, implementing and maintaining an effective compliance program at UTMB. He monitors and reports results of compliance efforts across the institution and provides guidance to executive management regarding compliance issues and requirements, as well as regulatory law advice.

Prior to UTMB, Boenig served as a compliance attorney at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and was responsible for providing legal research and analysis in privacy and corporate compliance matters. He began his legal career in Houston with Vinson & Elkins.

Originally from the small town of Marion, Texas, Boenig received a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M University and a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law.

What does Best Care mean to you and how do you contribute?

Best Care is what we should always strive to achieve. Our patients and the community we serve deserve nothing less than excellence.

Our job, as the compliance office, is to make sure that we stay abreast of the ever-changing health care regulatory environment. We understand that our health care professionals went to school to care for patients, so the compliance office serves as a resource to follow these regulations and educate the UTMB community so that they can concentrate on providing Best Care.

What are the biggest challenges you face as UTMB’s chief compliance officer?

As we move into 2017 and beyond, I believe we will continue to see significant changes in health care regulations and requirements. Our job is going to be to follow these changes and respond with education and outreach where necessary.

What was your first job?

I started working for my uncle’s fencing company in Seguin, Texas, when I was about 14 years old. I dug post holes and stretched barbed wire. While I learned the value of hard work, it also helped me to realize that I wanted to concentrate on my education.

What do you like to do outside of work?

My wife Jennifer and I have two boys and a girl: Kieran (10), Sawyer (5) and Elizabeth (2). As you can see from the photo, we are kind of Disney nerds. When I’m not chasing around three kids, I like to watch Aggie football or Astros baseball. Both can be excruciating to follow.

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Toby and his wife, Jennifer, visit Disney World with their three children: Kieran (10), Sawyer (5) and Elizabeth (2).

Do you have any hidden talents?

It may not be hidden to the folks in the compliance office, but I consider myself an expert in Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Now that I say this, someone will stump me.

What’s something you always wanted to do but have not done yet?

I have always wanted to go to the Masters Tournament. The pageantry and the scenery of the annual golf tournament is beautiful.

I love how so much is riding on every single shot and the littlest of mistakes is the difference between a great shot or one that is horrendous.

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

I want to go on an African safari. As much as my family and I love the safari at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, I believe that an African safari may just be a bit more of a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

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Because of you… Working Wonders Campaign exceeds goal The biggest philanthropic effort in UTMB history— our $450 million Working Wonders Campaign—officially concluded on Nov. 17, having exceeded the goal by raising $450,954,995 as of that date for various initiatives at our university. President David UTMB President David Callender with Development Office staff.

L. Callender announced the record-breaking total at a special celebratory gathering of UTMB’s congratulated the entire Working Wonders Campaign Team, offering Development Office staff. He characterized the campaign as special thanks to Betsy Clardy, vice president and chief development “transformative” for UTMB, enabling UTMB to construct the new officer, and Maria Tabaracci, campaign manager. We extend sincere Jennie Sealy Hospital, to add 153 new endowments and to fund thanks to all faculty, staff and retirees who contributed $13.3 million or sustain several major research programs on our campus. He to the effort through the Family Campaign.

When people at UTMB say “working together to work wonders,” zombies aren’t the first thing that come to mind. But this fall, the university community’s amazing success with the State Employee Charitable Campaign (SECC) illustrates that together, what we can do is quite wonderful.

Led by 2016 chairman Dr. James Graham, a very creative steering committee and more than 60 “SECC Ambassadors” who helped champion efforts in their respective areas, this year’s final amount will be close to $590,000—well beyond the $525,000 goal.

The SECC has been around for more than two decades and is the only statutorily authorized workplace campaign for state agency and higher education employees throughout Texas. UTMB’s large and generous workforce has always been among the leaders statewide in

giving, and those dollars are important to the charitable agencies and causes in the communities where staff live and work.

UTMB’s campaign is largely a volunteer-driven effort with a strong emphasis on innovation and collaboration; the grassroots nature of the effort has been at the heart of its success. Fun themes such as this year’s zombies, the Force from Star Wars and the Wizard of Oz help attract attention and engage participants. But ultimately, it’s teams of great UTMB employees who embrace charitable giving and understand why it matters who make the campaign a success year after year.

Once again, the people at UTMB proved they had big hearts and great brainssss!

Meet your new Employee Advisory Council Members Nov. 20 concluded the EAC election, with more than 2,000 votes cast—a record! Congratulations to newly elected Employee Advisory Council Members: Lori Kocian DeWillis, associate director of support services, Office of the Provost (representing Academic

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Enterprise); Laura David, cluster nurse manager at the Gib Lewis and Goodman facilities (representing Correctional Managed Care); Gopakumar Manikandaseril, RN, Surgical Intensive Care Unit (representing Hospitals and Clinics); and Truc Phuong Tran, business systems analyst in Information Services (representing Institutional Support). They will serve three-year terms, joining two other members from each entity, to represent their UTMB colleagues.

Many thanks to outgoing EAC reps for a job well done: Frank Valiulis (Institutional Support), Souby George (Health System), Kevin Moore (CMC) and Mary Schlobohm (Academic Enterprise.)

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UTMB Discover, an enterprise data warehouse and analytical toolkit for the volumes of data generated throughout the institution, will enable better, more efficient decision making by UTMB’s leadership while supporting front-line initiatives that improve patient care, enhance research initiatives and support our academic mission.

More than a warehouse in the traditional sense where information is simply stored, the UTMB Discover initiative includes the development of applications to aggregate data from all of UTMB’s mission areas into one location where it can be connected, compared and analyzed.

“We’re behind the times organizationally in taking full advantage of the data that we already have in our control so this is our golden opportunity to step ahead and really empower people in the moment with the data they need to make good decisions,” said UTMB’s Chief Quality, Safety and Clinical Information Officer Mark Kirschbaum.

“At the front line, we should be informing people’s decisions with data.

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Discover is to empower the front-line employee with the data they need to do their job even better on a day-to-day basis.”

Kirschbaum said the initial applications being developed as part of UTMB Discover focus on Health System data—specifically readmissions and surgical services—as well as general ledger financial data. Plans for future expansion call for development of applications to work with data to support the research and educational missions of UTMB. Dustin Thomas, UTMB’s vice president for Decision Support, said the initial applications— Readmissions Explorer, Surgical Services Explorer and Key Process Analysis—have been developed with the help of third-party vendor HealthCatalyst.

The UTMB Discover initiative includes the development of applications to aggregate data from all of UTMB’s mission areas into one location where it can be connected, compared and analyzed.

Utah-based HealthCatalyst has years of experience creating similar programs for health systems throughout the U.S. and is helping UTMB accelerate its process of launching applications to begin working with the data it has collected. The first three applications are set to launch in December.

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UTMB News

“Each of these three applications is designed to give us a 30,000-foot-view of what’s going on within those areas,” Thomas said. “Key Process Analysis will look at financial and clinical variation opportunities. Readmissions Explorer will examine the incidence of patients returning to the hospital sooner than they should be as compared to our peers. Finally, Surgical Services Explorer will look at whether we’re using our operating rooms, delivery rooms and procedural areas in the most efficient way that we can.”

as well as finding ways to treat those hospitalizations and illnesses in the most efficient manner drives population health initiatives, Thomas said. UTMB Discover will help support population health directives by giving UTMB the tools to see how its care fits into the communities it serves.

Loren Skinner, vice president and chief operating officer for the Academic Enterprise, said UTMB Discover represents a new way to support UTMB’s missions and help the organization thrive as it moves forward in the years to come.

UTMB Discover also helps support the Best Care initiative “When UTMB Discover is fully implemented, it will provide by providing real-time data to identify areas for improvement users across UTMB the ability to access detailed, flexible and within the care environment, Kirschbaum said. accurate views of clinical, research, administrative and financial “If you were to pick one of the Best Care initiatives—such data which can support all of the missions of an academic as mortality—this information is going to help us both medical center,” Skinner said. “This information will be available identify cases where we perhaps had a care component to to all, including clinicians, researchers and students.” that mortality that we could do better on and also potentially isolate when it was just a documentation issue and not a care problem,” he said. “That allows us to look at what can we do to enhance our documentation so that our expected rate of mortality is accurate.”

UTMB Discover Project Vision

In addition to its clinical applications, UTMB Discover will enable the institution to conduct several new areas of research, said Allan Brasier, MD, professor of Internal Medicine and director of the Institute for Translational Sciences and the Sealy Center for Molecular Medicine.

“A major current focus for the Institute for Translational Sciences is to expand our clinical trials activities,” Brasier said. “UTMB Discover will enable us to identify where patients with certain diseases are being cared for in the health system, and by whom, so that we can conduct more efficient recruitment activities to meet the study requirements.”

Brasier added that UTMB Discover would make it possible for researchers to systematically evaluate and study the effects of implementing health care improvement processes on patient outcomes.

“For example, we have projects seeking to identify the reasons why some patients are at risk for early readmission, and to develop strategies to reduce these reasons. This tool will allow us to understand the characteristics of these high-risk patients, identify them earlier and evaluate the effect of various delivery improvements throughout the health system.”

UTMB Discover also has significant applications with population health, which requires an examination of data that resides outside of UTMB to focus on keeping people in general healthier. Investing in prevention of disease, working with primary care physicians to avoid major hospitalizations

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As the health care marketplace shifts toward value-based care, UTMB is increasingly more dependent on timely, accurate and actionable data to support the advancement of analytic capabilities and drive transformative clinical and business strategies.

UTMB Discover will feature: • A repository to store clinical, administrative and financial data •Tools to enable meaningful analysis and support decision-makers in real-time • Services to assist users in their understanding of the data and use of the tools • Governance to establish priorities and data standards • Policies to ensure business alignment, responsiveness and information security

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Top tips for safe online holiday shopping

By Bob Shaffer, director, UTMB’s Office of Information Security As you make holiday purchases online, remember to think before you connect.

With the uptick in website traffic, the holiday season is the perfect time for attackers to target online shopping sites and steal personal information for the purpose of identity theft and financial fraud.

Follow these simple tips to keep your season merry and reduce the risk of becoming a cybercrime victim: 1. Use only trusted devices when conducting online transactions involving your personal or financial information. Ensure your devices are using updated operating systems—Windows 7 or above for PCs, 10.6 or above (Snow Leopard) for Macs, and the most 4. Make sure sensitive information is recent OS for iPhone and Android devices. Install transmitted securely. Before you click security software and enable automatic updates on the “submit” button, make sure that the for antivirus and system updates. internet address in your browser begins with 2. Use strong passwords on your devices “https.” The “s” at the end of https indicates and online accounts (six to eight characters that the information will be transmitted with upper/lower case letters and numbers). securely.

Use different passwords for each of your online accounts, especially banking or financial/credit 5. Be wary of deals that are too good to be true. Cyber criminals routinely offer accounts. unbelievable deals to lure consumers to 3. Scrutinize all emails that ask you to click a website in an attempt to steal personal on a link. If an email asks you to click on a link, information. As the old adage goes, if it looks validate that the link is really taking you to the too good to be true, it probably is. site it is advertising. Hovering your cursor over the link will tell you where it’s taking you. Validate 6. Don’t conduct personal business on unsecured public Wi-Fi. Always be again after you’ve clicked on the link by looking cautious when using public Wi-Fi and avoid at the website address in your browser.

doing sensitive transactions. If you must do a transaction, ensure that it is secure.

Remember https: The “s” is for secure.

7. Only exchange personal information with reputable sites. Stick with wellknown sites. Research new sites before using them.

8. Provide only the minimum amount of information to conduct a transaction.

Organizations that ask for more information than is needed to process a transaction raise a red flag. If a website is asking for a Social Security number to purchase a pair of shoes, you need to go somewhere else for that purchase.

9. Use credit cards instead of debit cards for online purchases. Credit cards are generally safer because they allow consumers to seek a refund from the issuer if the product isn’t delivered or isn’t what was ordered. You should also consider enabling alerts on your debit/credit cards. Most financial institutions can send you text/email alerts when a predefined dollar threshold is exceeded or an online purchase is made.

10. Keep a trail of all online transactions.

Reconcile online purchases with financial statements as soon as you get them to make sure there aren’t any unauthorized charges.

Notify your bank or credit card issuer immediately to report unknown charges.

Parting Shot

Brightening the season

The Provost’s Office, including (L-R) Alexis Loyd, Paul Bristol, Claudia Young, Diana Chide, Dr. Danny Jacobs, Victor Moreno and Michelle Moreno, got into the holiday spirit during UTMB’s annual holiday lighting ceremony on Dec. 1, in front of Jennie Sealy Hospital on the Galveston Campus. Guests enjoyed the lights, music, cider and hot chocolate, and celebrated the wonderful work the UTMB community does to brighten the lives of patients, families and visitors.

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