From the VP: Better days ahead for the U District

Like every urban business and cultural center, Seattle’s U District neighborhood continues to face the ramifications and economic hardship of the COVID-19 pandemic. Without the bustle of students, faculty, staff and visitors for the past twelve months, some of the great progress the District made in the last few years around livability and public safety has been set back. This is concerning for those who live and work in the District as well as for families of students who make the District their home during the academic year.

As more vaccines get into arms each day, we are finally beginning to see some light at the end of this pandemic tunnel. While there is still a long road ahead, several exciting developments are brewing in the U District that cause me to remain very optimistic about the neighborhood’s future. They include:

Light rail arriving fall 2021– One of three stations coming online this year, the University District light rail stop will connect the U District to downtown Seattle and Northgate, significantly expanding access to the area. While it may be hard to imagine crowding onto public transportation right now, Sound Transit projects that the light rail extension will eventually serve over 41,000 riders a day.
New leadership heading the U District Partnership – After a nationwide search, the UDP welcomed Don Blakeney as their new executive director. Blakeney has held leadership roles in neighborhoods across Seattle and New York City, including his recent position as the VP of Policy and Advocacy with the Downtown Seattle Association. I look forward to seeing how his new energy and fresh ideas help foster a vibrant, diverse and healthy neighborhood for all who live, work and visit the district.
West Campus expanding – As part of the UW Campus Master Plan, Site W27 will be the first new public-private building in the UW’s West Campus. Located on Brooklyn Avenue Northeast at Northeast Pacific Street, Site W27 will house researchers and entities focused on clean energy and other innovations that promote a sustainable future. Within the approximately 340,000 square foot space, Site W27 will also consolidate the UW Clean Energy Institute (CEI), CEI’s Washington Clean Energy Testbeds and the Northwest Institute for Material Physics, Chemistry and Technology under one roof. Funding for this consolidation and the establishment of a world-class center for advanced materials and clean energy technologies (CAMCET) was provided by the state legislature. There will also be an opportunity for mission-aligned civic, nonprofit or private institutions to lease space.
Affordable housing options increasing – The Campus Master Plan also includes a commitment to add affordable housing units in the District. In a joint effort between the University of Washington and Seattle Housing Authority, the Filer Project will build affordable housing units on University-owned land located at Roosevelt and 42nd. The complex will include approximately 150 apartments affordable to people making 60% of area median income as well as a childcare center on the ground floor. An RFQ will be issued in summer 2021 and the building is anticipated to open in 2025.
Plans for additional housing and office buildings – The holes on 12th Avenue Northeast are just the beginning of new developments coming to the U District over the next several years. The Hub U District, Brooklyn — a 25-story residential tower and pocket park that would replace the parking lot behind The Graduate Hotel — and a 13-story office building with retail space to be built on top of the new light rail station are just two examples of nearly a dozen proposed projects. As these towers change the skyline, they will also dramatically increase the number of housing units in the U District and provide additional retail space. For those who want to keep tabs on development plans, I recommend bookmarking Seattle in Progress, an interactive map that highlights new projects.

Like so many things about this pandemic, we must remember that now is not forever. Although we do not know when, students, visitors and university employees will return to the U District in their pre-pandemic numbers. New developments have the potential to increase opportunities for all who live, work, learn and play in the district. In the meantime, let’s continue to support our local U District favorites to ensure they will still be here when the world opens up more broadly again.

From the VP: 2021 Washington state legislative session preview

You may recall at the onset of the pandemic last spring, the Washington State Economic and Revenue Council estimated a shocking $9 billion state budget deficit. This forecast was particularly troubling to those of us in higher education. State appropriations to the University of Washington were cut in half during the Great Recession and the UW has only now, more than a decade later, reached pre-recession levels of funding. Another significant reduction in appropriations from the state now would be devastating. Thankfully, subsequent revenue estimates have been less bleak. In fact, the November 2020 forecast adjusted the state’s projected revenue shortfall down to $2.4 billion. Although the deficit is not as large as initially anticipated, the legislature will still have their work cut out for them when they convene virtually on January 11.

In response to the state fiscal environment, our operating budget requests are modest and primarily focus on the significant COVID-19 related needs of our hospital system. On the other hand, we are proposing several major capital budget requests including funding for construction of an Interdisciplinary Engineering Building in Seattle, the new Milgard Hall in Tacoma and the new Behavioral Health teaching hospital at UW Medical Center Northwest. To read the full list of the UW’s capital and operating budget requests, click here. Last week we received the good news that Governor Inslee’s 2021-23 budget proposal included funding for nearly all of our operating and capital budget requests. While not a guarantee, this is an encouraging first step forward.

As we prepare for the start of the legislative session, it is important to note that the upcoming session will primarily be conducted remotely. This presents a unique challenge for us—much of our work happens when we catch a member or staffer in the hallway between meetings or in line for a cup of coffee. These serendipitous encounters simply don’t happen in a virtual environment. It is comforting, however, to know that everyone is in the same boat. No one has figured out how to navigate virtual session yet, but I know the State Relations team will find new ways to make the University’s voices heard.

As 2020 comes to a close and vaccine distribution begins, it might be tempting to think the pandemic is finally moving behind us. As President Cauce often says however, while there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it’s still a very long tunnel that will take many more months to navigate through. As we enter this new year full of renewed hope, all of us in the Office of External Affairs will continue to be vigilant and advocate for continued investments in the important work of our great University.

Huskies fighting COVID-19: Lisa Chew, Martine Pierre-Louis and Paula Houston

This week we connected with Dr. Lisa Chew, Associate Medical Director of Ambulatory Services at Harborview Medical Center and associate professor at the UW School of Medicine; Martine Pierre-Louis, Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion for Harborview Medical Center; and Paula Houston, Chief Equity Officer for UW Medicine and Associate Vice President for Medical Affairs at the UW. Together, they spearheaded the creation of multiple mobile vans to provide COVID-19 testing in underserved communities.

Q: Could you tell me a little bit about each of your roles and how you three know each other? Had you worked together before this project?

LC: I provide clinical leadership, direction and oversight of ambulatory care services at Harborview Medical Center. My focus is on the design, implementation and operations of programs that promote high quality, safe, equitable and cost-effective medical care. I am dedicated to improving the delivery of care for underserved populations and currently chair the Harborview’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Council — with Martine Pierre-Louis — to integrate efforts to address disparities and advance equity at Harborview Medical Center.

MPL: As Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, my role is to identify, define, assess and make recommendations on the implementation of policies, practices and processes that promote health equity and workforce diversity and inclusion at Harborview. As part of this role, I connect with community partners in order to make their experiences and voices an integral part of the planning, designing, delivery and evaluation of our services.

PH: In my role, I am leading the work to advance equity, diversity and inclusion across the UW Medicine system as we strive to become an anti-racist organization. Our work is focused on policies, practices, education and training within three objectives set forth in our Healthcare Equity Blueprint – Workforce and students, community engagement and clinical improvements.

LC: Paula, Martine and I have worked together on issues related to equity, diversity, and inclusion at UW Medicine.

Q: How did the idea for the mobile testing vans come about?

LC: Early in the pandemic, we noticed that the majority of the patients hospitalized for COVID-19 at Harborview Medical Center were limited English proficient. We wondered if this finding held true more broadly. When we looked at data across UW Medicine during the month of March, we found that limited English proficient individuals and persons of color had much higher positive rates of COVID-19 than the rest of the population.

We also observed that there were very high COVID-19 rates in South King County which coincided with where communities of color live who had limited access to testing. This was a health inequity that we needed to address. We were also aware that people who are homeless are at high risk for contracting and developing complications from COVID-19 infections. We had to figure out a way to develop a testing program that would be easily accessible for these populations and communities and we needed to do it quickly. Mobile testing vans would allow us to be nimble.

Q: How did you identify the populations you wanted to serve with this approach?

LC: We looked at the data from UW Medicine, analyzing COVID-19 positive rates disaggregated by race, ethnicity, language and geography. This allowed us to identify communities in King County most at risk. In addition, we engaged with the Community Health Boards who represent many of the racial/ethnic groups that were disproportionately affected by COVID-19 to hear their stories of the challenges within their communities.

PH: Along with using the data and information from public health — Martine and I having worked in south Seattle specifically — knew there were communities there (Black, people of color, limited English proficient, immigrants) who historically have been marginalized and have had less access to healthcare. Given this, we wanted to prioritize south Seattle as a location for our first mobile van.

Q: What are some of the challenges you’ve faced getting these vans up and running? How did you overcome these challenges?

LC: One big challenge was to find funding for the program. Philanthropic support allowed us to jumpstart this effort and mobilize resources. Although we needed to work quickly, we wanted to ensure that our testing effort was safe and effective. We sought the input from Community Health Boards to better understand the facilitators and barriers to testing. This information provided valuable guidance as to how we would develop a testing program that would be meaningful, impactful and culturally sensitive.

Working out the logistics of a mobile testing program was no easy task. For example, we needed to find locations, ensure adequate staffing, figure out the traffic flow, outreach to the community, follow infection prevention protocols, provide interpretation support, and notify patients of their results. The teamwork, creativity and tireless effort by many of my Harborview and UW Medicine colleagues and the partnerships with multisector organizations such as community health centers, schools, colleges, faith-based organizations, local government, businesses and Seattle King County Public Health were essential in helping us overcome these barriers. It was amazing to witness the shared sense of responsibility and collaboration across Harborview, UW Medicine and the community.

Q: What is one thing you wish more policy makers understood about COVID-19 and its impact on underserved communities?

LC: The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the longstanding inequities that exist in our nation. We need to prioritize the health of individuals without privilege. In addition to providing access to high quality health services, we need to address the social determinants of health and environmental and community conditions that impact health to be successful. This requires collaboration among health care systems, communities and multisector organizations to identify health priorities, unite around shared goals, develop culturally tailored solutions and ultimately improve the health and well-being of the community during and long after the pandemic.

From the beginning, the University of Washington and UW Medicine have supported our state’s efforts to mitigate the effects of COVID-19. “Huskies fighting COVID-19” is a feature series highlighting individuals whose work is making an impact from Public Health and Computer Science & Engineering to the Virology Lab and the emergency room.

Huskies fighting COVID-19: Jack Davis

This week we connected with Jack Davis, AM Courier Lead for UW Medical Center Reference Lab Services (RLS) Courier Group. Davis has been working on the front lines of the pandemic in a role most of us don’t even think about. He shares his experience transporting specimens from testing sites to the laboratory — an often overlooked, but critical step in tracking disease transmission.

Q: For those who are not familiar, could you share what a medical courier does?

A: UW Medical Center RLS couriers collect specimens from outlying locations and transport them to our centralized specimen processing labs. Our two largest processing centers are the main lab on the Montlake campus and the Clinical Virology Lab. The Clinical Virology Lab handles all our COVID-19 specimen processing. We currently have some 20+ routes and our COVID-19 specific pick-ups. Couriers start as early as 6:15 a.m. and finish as late as 12:30 a.m. We work every day of the year.

A typical courier day involves driving a preset route. Couriers go to the same stops in the same order at the same time every day. We cover territory from Seattle to Moses Lake and Ferndale to Olympia. But we don’t really have typical days. Cars break down, tires go flat, people call in sick, our COVID-19 specific clients call with schedule changes and supply requests we can never fully anticipate. My ideal day is one where we have enough surge capacity to shoulder all planned and unplanned events without anything getting dropped or missed. And (knock on wood) so far we have always been able to make it work.

Q: Do you remember when you first learned about COVID-19? What were you thinking and feeling at that time?

A: Yes – it was March 2, a Monday. Talk of COVID-19 was in the air the previous week. I remember that on Friday, February 28, my supervisor said he thought CV-19 was going to be a big deal. I told him I disagreed – I figured it was just being overblown. Then, on Monday morning, Greg Pepper (manager of the Clinical Virology Lab at EVIR) told me that we were gearing up to be able to process 1,000 specimens a day. By Wednesday, that number was up to 5,000 a day. Later, it was adjusted to a goal of 15,000+. With hindsight, I see this as the time we stepped out of the known into a long surreal period of intense work beyond what any of us had done before.

Q: How did your work change as the weeks progressed?

A: Right away, change happened fast. Supply systems began faltering. Dry ice became impossible to keep in stock. Our quantity of specimen transporting totes proved to be too low. We needed more of everything. More drivers. More cars. More routes. More stops. More totes to transport specimens. More ice packs. More dry ice. We couldn’t get hand sanitizer for couriers or Sani-Wipes to clean cars. Masks simply did not exist. Frequent handwashing was the advice offered.

The processing systems for incoming specimens were never designed to handle the volume of samples COVID-19 unleashed on them, and there was no time to redesign the process. SPS put out a call for volunteers and threw bodies at the problem. People came from other labs. Folks came out of retirement and volunteered. People worked 7 days a week; did double shifts. Doing whatever it took was how jobs got done. Nothing was sacred. If something worked better than the current way, better was what we did. And through it all, couriers performed flawlessly. When asked to stay late, they did. When asked to make extra stops, they did. Every courier stepped up to the best of their ability to get the job done.

Eight months into these COVID times so much has changed, yet so little is different. We continued to see an unrelenting pace of COVID, COVID, COVID. We continue to transport COVID-19 specimens in large volumes on a steady basis and service COVID-19 specific clients in addition to our regular routes.

Q: Why did you choose to work as a medical courier?

A: I started as a medical courier because it offered decent benefits and was a good part-time job to help my transition from having been a boat builder/Composites Construction Project Manager to becoming a writer. But something happened. At some point, the service aspect of courier work hooked me. An experience from my old route gives a good example. On the route I drove, there was a patient I saw every day. She was a wonderful women; full of positive energy. One day she told me that just seeing the bright Hawaiian shirts I wore always made her day a little lighter. Sadly, she passed away, but her daughter made a special trip to tell me how much I had meant to her mother just by my simple daily actions and attitude. Over the years, these experiences began to accumulate and being of service became an important thing to me.

Q: During this difficult and often stressful time, what keeps you going?

A: Someone at UW Medical Center said this COVID-19 work is the most difficult, frustrating and rewarding work they have ever done. I agree.

What keeps me going is faith. Years ago, I spent two months at a boat building school in Maine created by Lance Lee. Lance told a story about a rock on Hurricane Island. It was about 6 feet tall and had a sheer face on one side, but you could easily walk up the back of it to get to the top. He used it for a team/trust/relationship building exercise. Your task was simple. Stand at the top of the rock with your back to your teammates, close your eyes, spread your arms and fall backward trusting that your teammates would catch you. Lance said the experiences on that rock were transformational for many people.

For me, this COVID experience is like that rock. There are huge numbers of people working together, doing better than any of us have a right to expect with the information and circumstances they have to work within. It is that faith-based teamwork experience I find transformational. It is not a religious faith, but a faith in teamwork, trust-based relationships and a passion to do the best work possible no matter the circumstances. COVID-19 eradication will not be fast, nor pretty, but with faith and trust we will undoubtedly triumph in the end. For me, the way forward is to Fall Like On Hurricane (FLOH) and doing that has made all the difference.

Huskies fighting COVID-19: Denise Batura

This week we connected with Denise Batura, ICU nurse at Harborview Medical Center. Batura has been working on the front lines of the pandemic in the Harborview COVID-19 ICU. She shares her experience caring for patients and serving families during this unprecedented time.

Q: What inspired you to become a nurse? What keeps you going?
A: I always knew that I wanted to be a nurse. I love people and caring for them. What solidified me pursuing a nursing career was working in a long term care facility and loving being around the elderly and learning about them as a person, listening to their stories and life experiences.

I have been a nurse now for 25 years, and I continue to love it. Nurses are an amazing group of people that I am proud to be a part of.

Q: Do you remember when you first heard about COVID-19? What were you thinking and feeling at that time? How did that change as the weeks progressed?
A: When I first heard of COVID-19 it was early February. To be honest I was not that concerned about it. I remember when there was the Ebola outbreak in Africa in 2014. Harborview had a plan in place with a team of nurses, respiratory therapies and doctors to care for them. I think our hospital had one Ebola case or rule out. Nothing catastrophic.

I had been planning several ski vacations, one to Colorado in February and the other to Banff in Canada early March. While in Banff, COVID became very real. It was all over – the news of the outbreak – and that it had reached the United States, my home Washington. I was traveling with two friends’ nurses. We were flying home on March 12th wondering if we would be allowed back in the States. I remember being extra careful wiping down our area with sani wipes and using the septic nasal swabs prior to our flight. I remember covering our faces with our jackets on the plane ride home. COVID was becoming very real flying home to where someone had died from it. COVID-19 had made it to Washington.

My vacation was over and I was in charge of the COVID ICU. I was given detailed instructions on how to train others on entering and exiting the patient’s room. We had all been trained early in the year on proper donning and doffing [of personal protective equipment]. COVID-19 took it to a new level. Not only did we don and doff very methodically, steps had been added to safely enter and exit a room with cleaning doors and surfaces multiple times with each entry and exit. There was and still is a trained observer to watch and make sure you enter and exit the room safely. It was intense.

My work day involved dressing in PPE, wearing scrubs (no street clothes or undershirts), scrub pants either rolled up or tucked in your socks so they didn’t touch the ground, a plastic gown, hair pulled back, a mask (N95 or PAPR) and eye protection. We’d try to cluster care so that we were not going in and out of the room. Not to mention making sure we were hydrated and had gone to the bathroom before we went in. You could expect to be in your patient room for hours. And when I did leave the room, I would be drenched, my scrubs soaked from sweat.

As the world learned more about the virus so did we. We adapted to COVID-19 and how we entered and exited rooms. Procedures would continue to evolve and treatments and therapies would change. The COVID ICU or our nickname Camp Covid continues to be up and running. It is staffed by neuroscience intensive care nurses as well as other nurses from other intensive care units. Caring for these patients has been exhausting.

One of the hardest things I have experienced with COVID-19 is when a patient is admitted to our ICU who is talking to us, alert and oriented. They feel terrible, are having trouble breathing and are scared. We are all hoping the medication and therapies like self-proning will work. But there are times when nothing works and they continue to struggle to breathe, becoming more short of breath, eventually requiring full life support. It is different from any other illness.

Q: With family members not being able to physically be present, has your role as nurse changed or adapted to help people connect with their loved ones? If so, in what ways?
A: COVID-19 prohibits any visitors from coming to the COVID ICU. This means families cannot be at their loved one’s bedside. Communication with families to the patient has been with Zoom on a laptop in the patient room. There have been many heartbreaking moments to hear families talk to their loved one, children sharing what they had done that day and spouses singing or just sharing stories of their day. Many times tears would roll down my face as I stood there listening to how much they love the person lying in the bed. Families would be so thankful for time spent “zooming.”

There are those who have conquered the virus and left the unit which is cause for celebration. We line the hall with staff to cheer for them as they leave Camp Covid. And there are those who are not as lucky. The individual who continues to do poorly despite all efforts. And the call is made for the family to come and say goodbye. Two family members are allowed into the patient’s room for 20 minutes and then they are escorted off the unit. It is absolutely devastating.

Q: This year has been stressful for so many of us. Is there anything you find helpful to care for your mental health and wellbeing as the pandemic continues?
A: To say this pandemic has been stressful is an understatement. So much has happened it is difficult to put into words. However, I can honestly say I love my job. I love being a nurse and the people I work with. They are all amazing individuals. We carry each other.

For me, keeping my spirits up and surviving this pandemic is taking it one day at a time.
Exercising, getting outside, and journaling which I started in June. I continue to be thankful for my own health.

Q: What is one thing you wish more people understood about the pandemic?
A: People and the community need to be less careless. Be aware of your surroundings, be aware of your own health. Please do the simple thing of wearing a mask. If you are not feeling well, stay home!!