October 8, 2020

How We Are Helping During COVID

Hello Huskies. We hope you and your families are doing well. The UW community and the whole world is experiencing a truly unprecedented situation.  This is not the experience that anyone wanted for this school year, and our hearts go out to all of you at this difficult time. We are truly grateful to every member of the UW community for your partnership and your patience.

HSAS&F has always been dedicated to providing the infrastructure and services vital to the Health Sciences Schools. We are also, now more than ever, deeply committed to the health and safety of the entire UW community.  We are closely adhering to UW and Washington State COVID guidelines, and we are adapting our operations to reflect any updates to those safety guidelines and the evolving situation of COVID-19. Protecting our own staff has meant that we’ve had to adapt most of our operations. Some of our units have shifted to remote work whenever possible. Through these challenges, HSAS&F is still providing our core services, thanks to the dedication of our staff. Our Classroom Services group has been providing general and A/V technical support remotely. Our Standardized Patient Program currently has a pool of Zoom-trained Standardized Patient role-players (SPs) who are able to participate in online teaching simulations.

Some of our units and committed staff members are still providing core services on-site.  Our Scientific Instruments team still performs duties on-site as essential staff, despite experiencing low-staffing and reorganization. Our Building Management Office remains open, shifting their services to ‘by appointment only’ in order to adhere to safety guidelines. Health Sciences Security personnel still protect our building evenings, nights and weekend. Lab Services is open to help process biowaste and provide dishwashing and sterilization services.  UW Poster & Photo is still serving loyal customers.

As we learn to adapt to this “new normal,” we remain agile to current situation, but we are also keeping our eye on the future. We are actively assessing our current state of operation, as well looking at our plans for future, in case a similar situation as this year’s pandemic reoccurs. We’d like to invite you to help us shape our department and our direction. Do you have any current needs that we can help with?  Are there new or emerging services that we could possibly help you address? We would appreciate hearing from you.  Please send your comments and suggestions to the Director’s Office at  hsasfdir@uw.edu.

HSAS&F will continue to serve the UW Health Sciences Community to the best of our abilities. We are all in this together, and we cannot do it without you.

To stay updated with UW’s response to COVID, please refer to this page: https://www.washington.edu/coronavirus/