Congratulations Covid-19 Testing Team on Your 2021 UA Team Award of Excellence

The Covid-19 Testing Team gathered on Zoom for yet another meeting but was pleasantly surprised when they heard that guests from the Employee Recognition Committee were there to announce they had been chosen from the Best of the Best for a 2021 UA Team Award for Excellence.  The surprise patrol read some of the wonderful things their nominators had to say about them such as their team played a crucial role in keeping campus community safe by providing an efficient and effective process for covid testing on campus. The testing team was responsible for setting up and administering over 135,000 COVID tests to University of Arizona students and staff since August. Under Dr. Jane Hunter’s leadership, the team found new and creative ways to improve processing by implementing the Wildcat OneStop wellcheck to improve operational efficiency. They continuously seek creative ways to increase student participation in testing by way of providing incentives to improve registration and processing. The team recently switched to implementing a new PCR Saline Gargle test which is more accurate and cost-efficient. The Testing Team provides accessible and equitable testing to all students and staff by providing multiple sites throughout campus and easy registration. They have also gone above and beyond by setting up testing sites in other campus locations such as Sierra Vista, Oro Valley and Phoenix. Recently they have expanded testing to eligible Designated Campus Colleagues to reach more constituents. Through this massive undertaking, the team has always kept clear and transparent communication to all the multiple stakeholders on current climate or concerns through a notification to our Incident Command Center and through a public dashboard that is updated daily. Recently, they have also been instrumental in the coordination of the vaccine distribution for the City of Tucson working collaboratively with the Pima County Public Health Departments to successfully launch this on campus. I have witnessed the impact this team is making on our campus and in our community at large, during a pandemic that has impacted everyone’s life in this country. The sincere concern for our campus to keep the community safe, has been extraordinary.  Congratulations Covid-19 Testing Team for a job very well done!