Staff Award for Excellence - Gretchen Bautista

Gretchen Bautista with husband, Lindo, and sons, Raul (left) and David (right)

Clinical Research Project Manager, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine

Nominator, Dr. MeiLan Han - "Gretchen is possibly the strongest team member I have ever worked with. She is simply incredible in her devotion to the mission, her patients and her colleagues. She has worked around the clock and never complained to hold my research group's entire enterprise together during the pandemic, nearly single handedly. I can think of no one more deserving of this staff excellence award".

Work Performance

Gretchen has the most outstanding work ethic I've ever seen in any employee. She currently manages a team of clinical coordinators and has done so through the pandemic. She has worked tirelessly, nights and weekends, to make up for staff shortfalls and to assist team members to ensure all of the necessary work gets done. During the pandemic, this often meant working long hours, shuttling supplies between homes of staff members and thinking creatively about how we can solve problems. Gretchen is continuously focused on process improvement and brings forward new ideas to me on how we can work more efficiently. She is constantly plugging holes so that nothing falls through the cracks. Often this means doing her job plus that of those she supervises, which she does with a smile and without complaining. She is kind to those she works with. I have gotten feedback from those she supervises that she has created the best work environment they've had the privilege of working in. She is nurturing, supportive and patient. In fact, we now have individuals flocking from other areas to work with Gretchen. I couldn't ask for a better employee.

Leadership

Gretchen leads by example. She never asks someone to do something that she wouldn't do herself. Even though she is supposed to be doing project management and supervision, she often jumps in to do phone calls, IRB work, patient visits, calling sponsors or even HITS to make sure everyone can do their job as efficiently as possible. She cares deeply for her colleagues and the patients we serve and treats everyone with respect and kindness. She ensures everyone's birthdays and special events are recognized. She sends me reminders to make sure that I remember to submit people for awards or recognition.

Customer Service

Gretchen will do whatever it takes to provide excellent customer service to our patients. She would drive to someone's home if necessary, mail something from the post office herself or even go buy something with her own money if it means the needs of our patients or team members are met. She has driven to my home countless times during the pandemic to drop off various items from work to ensure the work continues seamlessly.

Process Improvement

Gretchen is always figuring out how to do things better. She figured out how to use sign now for our research processes before anyone else was doing it, in the beginning of 2020. Her knowledge led to adoption of this process for our clinical staff in pulmonary so that we could get rid of a lot of the "paper" that was sitting around in folders, not getting signed during the pandemic. Then she even trained the transplant staff in pulmonary how to do this so they could adopt a similar process. She brought in a Pitney Bowes machine to our research group to automate mailing (I didn't even know such a thing existed). She has taught the entire team how to do mail merges and systematic searches in Data Direct. To be honest I don't know how she knows how to do everything, but somehow Gretchen always knows either how to do something herself or will devote the time and energy to figuring out how to get it done.