Sharing gratitude can lead to stronger immune systems, lower blood pressure and a better night’s sleep.

The changeover to a new EMR was supposed to occur in May, but the coronavirus derailed that plan. Instead, the transition was pushed to July—before anyone realized it would be about the same time the summer surge of cases spread throughout San Antonio.

The record number of COVID-19 patients inundating New York hospitals in March was a wakeup call for respiratory therapists at University Health. The patients needed ventilators to breathe, and there weren’t enough to go around. Doctors in the Big Apple were considering who would get ventilators and who might have to double-up and share one.

You can’t tell a pregnant patient to stop her labor—giving birth is one of the few medical services outside of the emergency room that can’t be rescheduled. But with the imminent threat of COVID-19, caring for laboring women took an extraordinary amount of courage and ingenuity.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as any primary care physician will tell you. But even in emergency medicine—where coolness under pressure and expert reactions are the name of the game—everyday planning can be extraordinarily lifesaving. During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Christina Bird, medical director of the University Health Emergency Department, proved just that.

The daily work of immunology lab employees is a critical building block in the foundation of any healthcare system, but it doesn’t often generate headlines. That changed as COVID-19 began spreading throughout the country. University Health realized rapid, reliable testing would be necessary to protect its frontline workers and first responders.