National Tissue and Organ Donor Day

Did you know that this year today is not only Valentine’s Day but it is also National Donor Day? National Donor Day is a time to reflect on the gift of life that comes to many when they receive an organ, eye, tissue, or blood from another human being.

We all know that Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate love and giving an organ or tissue is a remarkable way to demonstrate love. Currently, there are over 120,000 people nationally who are waiting for a life-saving organ and each day 110 people are added to the national waiting list. One tissue donor has the potential to improve more than 50 lives and one organ donor has the potential to save up to eight lives. If you need more proof of the power of organ donation, I welcome you to stop by and visit our ‘Tree of Life.’ This permanent art installation, close to the Emergency Department Concourse, memorializes the selfless act of organ and tissue donation at GBMC. What’s great is that if you stop by The Tree of Life, there is a kiosk where you can designate to become a donor. Please consider doing so!

Give Blood, please!!!
This year, the extreme winter weather and a deadly influenza season have adversely impacted both donors and blood drive coordinators, resulting in the cancellation of many important drives across the U.S. This has created a shortage of blood. To add, many of us also, unfortunately, take the blood supply for granted. If your loved one had just had a serious injury or needed blood because of a significant disease, you would expect that blood would be available for them. We are very fortunate that blood is available when our loved ones need it…but it doesn’t magically happen.

At GBMC, it happens because of the American Red Cross, our community partners, and the many, many members of our dedicated and caring staff. It is because of those who take the time out of their very busy schedules that we often meet or exceed our blood donation goal each time we have a drive. We also have community members who come to GBMC to donate because they want to support their community hospital and health care system!

So, I am asking the GBMC family to help in our next blood drive slated for Thurs., February 15 in the Civiletti Conference Center from 5:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Please click here to schedule your life-saving donation! By the way, members of the community who come specifically to donate blood will receive a FREE meal ticket to the GBMC Dining Room, FREE parking and cookies. Employees will also receive the FREE meal ticket and cookies along with a special "Jeans Day" pass for Friday, February 16!

I am so proud of the teamwork displayed through these drives, helping GBMC to be a leader in blood donation. I hope you all consider coming out and helping us with this very important endeavor.

Protecting GBMC
About a month ago, two healthcare facilities in the U.S. experienced separate ransomware cyberattacks that compromised their patient files, patient portals, and their datacenter. This attack ultimately compromised the personal information of their patients and made it difficult to deliver care. To make sure that this doesn’t happen at GBMC, we need your help.

We all know that ready access to information on all aspects of care delivery is important, but is not without its risks. Through the Internet, health systems and other industries are under attack from criminals who look to profit from stealing information that should be private. The unfortunate situations, mentioned above, should serve as a reminder not to click links unless you are sure it’s safe, not to go to websites you aren’t familiar with and to ask IT for guidance if something doesn’t seem quite “right.”

You all recently received a notification from our Cybersecurity team with an important message regarding safeguards that were recently installed in our e-mail system.  All email is now subject to GBMC’s security filters and any mail that has characteristics of a phishing or other attack, will now be sent to the Junk folder. Unfortunately, this includes some internal emails. Please check both your outlook inbox and your junk folder daily.

We must all be vigilant and own the security of our information systems. Please bring the same questioning attitude that you use when delivering patient care to your use of e-mail, the electronic record, and other applications. Remember that it takes all of us to keep GBMC safe from cyber attack.