NEWS

We have a final decision from the Board following the emergency meeting today. We are having an all-staff meeting tomorrow, Friday, December 3rd at 1p to go over the changes to the COVID-19 Vaccination Policy. Please be at H2O Church (4420 W Broadway – location of our last staff meeting) at 1p.

Yesterday a federal judge temporarily stopped the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers in the United States. The Leadership Team is meeting today to discuss next steps and we will update you as soon as possible. Thanks for being patient with us as we navigate the situation.

It is with a heavy heart that I announce that we have decided to cancel the Christmas Party. Why? Because the Vaccine Mandate deadline is set for December 6th, and we did not feel that having a Christmas Party two days later would be an appropriate time to host a celebration. We want to honor our team members and their decisions regarding the mandate, and it did not seem that having a party two days later would be the kind thing to do. Although the Christmas Party is cancelled, Christmas and the spirit of giving will not be…it will just be different than we planned.

There will be some important changes taking place this weekend with regard to our email and TEAMS accounts to better protect the IT infrastructure for the GSCC. We are transitioning to a new email domain and upgrading some IT things that most of us will never understand. What does this mean for you?:

1. Those of you with laptops, please leave your laptops at your workstations this weekend and ensure they are turned on and lid is open

2. If you have a desktop, please make sure it is turned on

3. You will have a new email address beginning on Monday; your email will be your firstname.lastname@ibuildhealth.org

4. You will continue to receive any emails with the @gsccardmore.com address but your outgoing address will be the @ibuildhealth.org address

As you all know, the COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate was released a few days ago and the Leadership Team has been working through the requirements and how they will affect you as a GSCC employee.

There have been untold numbers of consequences for all of us because of this pandemic some for the good…like us focusing more on what is truly important like family and our relationships and some for the bad…loss of friends and family we love and then some added consequences that are just plain annoying…like wearing masks!!!

I believe that we have all been given free will to make choices that affect our lives…good, bad or indifferent. It is also true that others who have free will can make choices that have consequences for us...consequences that we would never choose for ourselves, like the consequences that we have all dealt with because of COVID-19. We can and do make all sorts of choices that affect us as well as affect others. But something that we often take for granted or forget…is that although we have free will to make choices, we do not get to choose the consequences for those choices nor how far reaching those choices become.

Over the last several weeks/months we have been watching the progress on the Vaccine Mandate and its potential effects on you as an employee in a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). New information was passed down today and the Leadership Team will be meeting in the next couple of days to discuss our next steps with regard to compliance with the mandate.