Staff Award for Excellence - Caitlin Vuocolo

Caitlin Vuocolo

Administrative Manager Associate - Division of Hematology/Oncology

Nominator, Dr. Rashmi Chugh - "Caitlin is an outstanding, dedicated employee who has the ability, willingness and flexibility to accept changes and challenges in any situation. Her responsiveness, calm demeanor, attention to detail and ability to work independently has enabled her to excel in her role as clinical liaison for Hematology-Oncology and Genetic Medicine. She is truly an asset to both divisions, the department and UMMG and undoubtedly deserving of this service award." 

Work Performance

Caitlin had been the division's business manager for many years prior to becoming both division's clinical liaison. In this new role that was created to support an ever changing clinical environment, Caitlin flourished. With minimal knowledge of clinical operations, she delved into this position by proactively connecting with the service chief, the patient experience group and UMMG staff to learn as much as possible about physician templates, schedules, utilization, effort and the nuances of the ACU scheduling area. Caitlin spent countless hours reviewing template changes for each sub-specialty within the Hem-Onc division while working closely with each provider to ensure their satisfaction with the changes. During the early months of COVID and afterwards, Caitlin worked long hours closing clinics and working with the providers and the ACU team to ensure patients were seen virtually as their continued care was necessary. She is the go-to person for requested vacations, template changes, clinic closures and in-patient services. Many times Caitlin has endured harsh emails from providers complaining about their templates or effort expectations that were out of her control. Her responses were always professional, factual and supported by policy changes.

Caitlin has rightfully earned the respect of our previous and new service chief, our division chief, ACU staff and leadership and our providers by her dedication to providing support to our faculty and working towards improved clinical operations while adhering to continual Med School and UMMG policy changes and metrics.

Leadership

Caitlin's leadership skills have always been commendable, however since her reclassification as our clinical liaison, she has excelled beyond any expectation. Besides a few months of mentoring her on departmental provider clinical expectations and introducing her to the patient experience team, Caitlin quickly became independent. She initiated meetings with providers, ACU leadership, and clinic managers to address changes, resolve issues or make suggestions regarding workflows. She has the ability, willingness and flexibility to accept changes or challenges in any situation. Examples include:
 
  • Prior to Qgenda, the creation of an all inclusive vacation, clinic closure and a CME time off request form.
  • In collaboration with the ACU, the creation of a template change request form.
  • Her willingness to work with other division leaders regarding the responsibilities and duties of her position and eventual creation of a similar position in their unit.
  • Her ability to respond quickly and problem solve: for example managing clinic coverage for a provider who was urgently needed back in his home country. Caitlin responded with immediate shout outs to providers within the same sub specialty for support, she worked with their admins to ensure all calendar conflicts were handled and communicated to the ACU team about the provider change so patients could be informed prior to their visit.
  • Most recently her involvement in the UMMG POI project. Caitlin was asked to join the PO1 project meeting by the service chief. She immediately embraced the role she would take in the successful implementation of this project by first scheduling weekly meetings with the ACU administrative director and then including ACU managers in subsequent meetings. Caitlin expressed her concern about the amount of work it would take to gather information from multiple providers, but also expressed her excitement to begin a new project. A notable comment about Caitlin's leadership style; she listens to understand, asks thoughtful questions and then embraces the project.

Customer Service

Caitlin's role encompasses serving a multiple number of customers. Her primary customer is our faculty. Although she is aware of clinical scheduling policies and expectations, Caitlin will do everything in her power to accommodate our faculty's requests. She goes out of her way to provide them with requested data/information and if she does not know the answer, she will find out who does. Her patience, professionalism, efficiency and responsiveness has been noted by many...specifically the service chief and the ACU team. As previously noted, Caitlin will do everything possible to ease the stress for any provider with an urgent issue that would impact their clinic. Her calm demeanor and excellent rapport with our faculty enables her to manage any clinical scheduling crisis.

Caitlin also works closely with the Cancer Center ACU team and is always willing to assist when needed. One notable event was when the cancer center needed additional support for submitting Cadence Tickets. (Submitting the TRF forms for clinical template updates, removing or adding providers into cadence, updating the decision trees).

Caitlin contacted me to ask if it would be acceptable to help out the ACU as she felt she had time in between projects. She stated that she wanted to support the group as she felt we were all a team and it was important to demonstrate that message. Her willingness to continually assist our ACU team by way of clear communication, collaboration regarding schedules and templates and her "let's just get this done" attitude is commendable. In Caitlin's eyes, there is no distinction between the division and the ACU.

Process Improvement

Caitlin continually suggests, gains buy in and then implements many small but valuable process improvements. For example, the creation of a faculty all inclusive vacation, clinic closure, LOA /sick time form that is user friendly. She also developed an email process as a way to ensure that these forms have been received and approved and the changes /requests have been submitted to division, department and the ACU if applicable. However, the most notable improvement was her seamless implementation of QGenda for both divisions. Once the approval for implementation was received by our division chief and service chief, Caitlin independently embraced the project and began work with the QGenda team. She single-handedly provided all necessary provider information to the team, completed multiple tabs and spreadsheets and scheduled meetings and training sessions for the admins. Once QGenda went live, Caitlin was the primary point person for any questions, issues/concerns with scheduling platform, data errors etc. As expected, Caitlin's ability to perform independently, her thoroughness, responsiveness and attention to detail greatly impacted the successful implementation of the QGenda scheduling platform.