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University of Michigan Pathology Directory
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Staff who exceed expectations in the workplace

Recognition of achievements in customer service, innovative ideas, going above and beyond and creating synergy in the work place.
 

Recognition for 
2015

Workplace Recognition – Exceeding expectations, ideas that improve the workplace, stepping up and out of the everyday, promoting teamwork and improving morale – are represented by the accomplishments of the following staff:

 

November 2015

Above and Beyond

 

Tara Lilley

Tara found and Enterovirus on a CSF that had been canceled as QNS by the Path Handbook standards. Our methodology has changed so the minimum volume is a much lower quantity. Tara was ale to re-order and run the Enterovirus test, which turned out to be a positive result. Tara notified the physician of these test results, which in turn, affected patient care. Consequently, the Path Handbook and Master Control procedures will be updated to reflect the new minimum volumes. 

October 2015

Above and Beyond

John Perrin

Marie states: I was working on a power point presentation at the American Medical Technology conference in Frankenmuth MI in early October. I had the presentation just about complete when things went haywire. I was frantic because I only had two days before my presentation. I search around for someone to help but no one was able to figure out what happened. I happened upon John Perrin (he was in a meeting at the time) and he asked me to come back in an hour and he would see what he could do. True to his word, when I got back he did just that. John spent two hours helping me locate the problem and make the necessary corrections. Even when I thought  that I could finish the rest on my own John stayed right by my side, slide by slide, until my presentation was completed. I could not have done it without him. At the end, my presentation was perfect and my dignity intact. I learned so much from John and I really appreciate his patience with me and this process. His expertise was priceless. I so appreciated him helping me and am grateful he is on the Pathology team. 

 

Kent Traylor

Kalyani states: Kent consistently is proactive in helping to monitor workload and identifying potential problems. This week, he took the initiative to look at the FNA schedule for thyroid clinic at Domino Farms for the following day and noted that there had been double booking on patients. By noting this and elevating the problem, we were able to contact the clinic and sort out the problem ahead of time and avoid the potential for patients to come all the was to the clinic for their appointment and have to be delayed or even turned away. VERY much appreciated. 

 

September 2015

Above and Beyond

Marie Brady

Marie covered 3 full time positions in addition to her own very full workload for an entire week. She handled everything smoothly, remaining very calm in the face of incredible stress. She is an inspiration to everyone who feels overwhelmed by their daily workload; not many people can handle 4 full time jobs at UMHS. 

 

Lisa Brown

Mary Lou states: Our freezer died over the weekend of 9/12/15 and maintenance couldn't get a hold of anyone from the laboratory to nofity. They called Lisa because she was the building manager for years and they didn't know who else to call. Even though it was 3 am and it wasn't her "job" anymore, Lisa took the call, made arrangements for the technician to move the items in the freezer to another freezer. She clearly provided customer serice that was exceptional and prevented patient samples from being compromised. 

 

August 2015

Above and Beyond

Alex Short
 
Alex always gives 100%, but recently the Pathology Administrator on call received a weekend call regarding rushing some slides to Mayo for a patient. The administrator needed someone to help find, package and rush the slides to Mayo by Monday. Alex stepped up to the plate and came in on Sunday morning to accomplish this task. He did this without any hesitation and completed the task efficiently. The slides made it and the patient was extremely happy. This is how pathology transforms the patient experience.
 
Tara Borchardt
 
The Canton/Saline POC Associate Supervisor, truly went above and beyond to accommodate a special needs patient earlier this month. She knew what tubes needed to be drawn for the specific tests and traveled to Saline after “opening” the Canton blood draw station early in the morning. On instinct, she looked in the patient’s MiChart and noticed that additional orders were added late the evening before and gathered appropriate tubes so that all of the tests would be run. Her willingness to draw this patient and double checking the test orders allowed for seamless acquisition of all specimens necessary to perform the desired tests.

July 2015

Customer Service

 

Sheri Welton

 

Sheri received a phone call from a patient who was canceling her appointment at the UM Cancer Center and did not want her pathology slides read; she was very dissatisified with the cancer center customer service and did not want to pay for the pathology read which was already completed. Sheri talked with the patient and transferred the call to me. The patient said if her cancer center experience had been like her interactions with pathology, she would have been happy to have her treatment here; Pathology was her best experience at U of M! The patient went on to say that Sheri was so helpful, positive, and professional unlike the staff she encountered in the cancer center. I so appreciate the work Sheri does every day.

April 2015

Customer Service

Jodi Kennedy-Stanfield

When a patient called regarding testing that we had missed for an appointment he had the next day, Jodi volunteered to drive approximately 45 minutes to collect the specimen, return it to the hospital and have testing completed before the patients next day appointment. Jodi's actions actively support the departments focus on service excellence.

Above and Beyond

Colleen McDermott

We had a patient with discrepant anti-dsDNA results, a test for lupus. while they were strongly positive in two of our tests, they gave negative results on two indirect immunofluorescent assays. Colleen was instrumental in solving this problem. we asked her to go above and beyond our routine activities and run extra studies using materials that had not been used before for this purpose. With her careful work and experience, she set up appropriate controls and did the initial readings on the slides. With this additional test, she was able to demonstrate that the antibodies were present so that the rheumatologists now had definitive data to diagnose and monitor their patient.

March 2015

Customer Service

Deb Soldner

Deb was able to run a stat CDIFF test request for Endoscopy. Normally this test is run as a batch at specific times. The test was positive and the procedure was then cancelled. This improved patient care and prevented spread of infection from scopes.  

February 2015

Customer Service

Rebecca Roberts

Rebecca went out of her way to provide great customer service to one of our own pathology staff. She took extra time to figure out a very complex Work Connections/FMLA situation, and made sure that all protocols were followed properly during the process. Rebecca benefited the employee by working closely with Work Connections and identifying resources still available. She also save the supervisor valuable time by being proactive and taking on much of the leg work. This is a great example of how one act can provide excellent customer service to several. Thank you Rebecca!
 

January 2015

Above and Beyond

Karen Machcinski, Microbiology

Karen volunteered to train on the afternoon shift so a fellow employee who had child-care constraints could learn a new area in which to work. She worked very hard to complete the training in a short time period. Realizing the workload was very heavy when the traineewas read to go solo, Karen informed the supervisors she would work the afternoon shift to make sure the work was complete in a timely fashion and to provide support to a newly trained coworker.

Customer Service

Lakeia French & Michele Keener, MLabs

The M-Labs phones were down at Traverwood 4 on January 9th. This required someone from the MLabs office to go to Specimen Processing to take Customer Service calls over there. Lakia and Michele went over there for the day and evening shifts. This was a difficult task because there was only one phone and computer available for use. This meant that all customer service calls were routing to one line. Sometimes there would be as many as 10 calls in queue. Since the computer in SP is not set up to handle opening all of the windows necessary for MLabs to serve the customer, SOFT kept freezing up, making the job even more difficult. Michele and Lakeia handled their full shifts and did a great job under difficult circumstances.