George B. Hernández, the previous longtime president and CEO of College Well being, obtained a lifetime achievement award for his function in remodeling Bexar County’s hospital system right into a nationally acknowledged public well being system.
Hernández is considered one of three folks to obtain the Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience Lifetime Achievement award from BioMedSA, a nonprofit that has supported the well being care and bioscience industries in San Antonio since 2005.
BioMedSA hosted its annual award ceremony on the Tobin Heart on Tuesday.
Hernández spent 34 years at College Well being in whole. He served as president and CEO of the general public well being system from 2005 till he retired in 2024.
Below his management, College Well being expanded take care of underserved populations and made large infrastructure investments at its hospital within the South Texas Medical Heart. That features the 1-million-square-feet Robert B. Inexperienced Pavilion Sky Tower extension in 2014 and the $573 million Girls’s and Kids’s Hospital that opened in 2023.
College Well being can also be within the midst of a $1.5 billion enlargement, which incorporates the development of two five-story hospitals on the Southwest and Northeast sides of San Antonio.
“As I look throughout the final 40 years or so in our metropolis, and I have a look at the excellent individuals who have been leaders, elected to workplace, or had main public duties, George is completely one of many most interesting public officers now we have within the latest historical past of San Antonio,” mentioned Henry Cisneros, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and City Growth and San Antonio’s mayor from 1981-89.
Hernández was additionally important in creating Group First Well being Plans, which is College Well being’s nonprofit medical insurance supplier.
“We put lots of emphasis after I turned CEO on ensuring that we represented all of our county and neighborhood,” Hernández mentioned. “Sure, our mission was to characterize the uninsured. There was care in case you’re uninsured. However how we did it, I believe, was distinctive. We did it by increasing care for everybody, after which everybody advantages.”
Hernández credited a lot of College Well being’s success to easily getting the perfect folks on board.
“I used to be extra of a symphony conductor than truly any of the instrument gamers,” he mentioned. “I concentrated my efforts at my stage getting the precise folks on the bus, and I believe the remainder of issues deal with themselves.”
Innovation award
BioMedSA additionally named Texas Biomedical Analysis Institute President Larry Schlesinger as this yr’s Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience Award honoree, citing the expansion on the personal analysis institute that has taken place beneath his management.
Since its founding in 1941, Texas Biomed has grown into a global title in analysis and science, with a give attention to infectious illnesses. A number of the analysis institute’s landmark accomplishments embrace advancing the COVID-19 vaccine, discovering the preliminary Ebola therapy and creating the primary Hepatitis-C remedy.
Schlesinger has led the institute since 2017. Since then, Texas Biomed has nearly doubled its employees and advanced its enterprise mannequin with the objective of shifting analysis towards federal approval sooner, in accordance with BioMedSA.
“Persistence is just not considered one of my attributes,” Schlesinger mentioned. “I at all times wished to not make incremental advances. I need to make leaps, and leaps take nice staff effort.”
Schlesinger and San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones spoke in regards to the uncertainties dealing with the bioscience and well being care fields amid federal funding cuts and skepticism of vaccines from U.S. Secretary of Well being and Human Companies Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“We’re doing this work in mild of, frankly, a really totally different panorama than what we had only a yr in the past. These in very highly effective positions actively questioning lengthy held public well being doctrine,” Jones mentioned. “The modifications within the public well being panorama are those which might be most regarding to me, and those that, as I have a look at our price range and our actions and the place we strive to make sure now we have enough resiliency, these are the areas the place I’m most involved.”
Texas Biomed contributed to the fast growth of the COVID-19 vaccine throughout the pandemic. Kennedy’s administration vastly restricted entry to the vaccine this yr.
“When an administration comes into workplace, they usually shift priorities,” Schlesinger mentioned. “However the quantity of uncertainty, tumult, hostility, is unprecedented. We have to ask ourselves the query of whether or not america continues to be the gold customary. And I believe a few of the insurance policies that we’re developing towards nowadays are are negatively impacting that.”
