Jennifer Brackett

It is my distinct honor to submit my nomination of Jenny Brackett, MBA, MHA for the David Thorud Leadership Award based on her superb leadership within UW Medicine. Jenny’s leadership through the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic and Monkeypox epidemic has had a broad positive impact on the success of UW Medicine’s response to these public health emergencies.

Jenny is an Assistant Administrator for Ambulatory Clinics at the UW Medical Center. She has served in progressively complex leadership roles at UW Medical Center since 2016 and possesses a drive and efficiency in her work that sets an example for others but is also infectious among her peers. A trusted and effective leader, Jenny’s skills shined even brighter as she led projects and teams across UW Medicine through the COVID-19 pandemic and a number of events since. Her focus, determination, and operational planning skills have been critical to our health system responses time and again.

Jenny took a leadership role in COVID Vaccination deployment which began in late 2020. This was a time of both great excitement and uncertainty for UW Medicine and the community. Jenny worked across our system and with external partners such as EMS to orchestrate our mass vaccination strategy that has administered 681,070 doses to date.

To demonstrate Jenny’s level of commitment to the health of our community, at 9pm on January 28th, 2021, UW Medicine received a call from a counterpart at Kaiser Permanente Washington alerting us to the fact that a freezer had failed and 1,600 doses of Moderna were going to expire at 5:30am at a time when COVID-19 vaccine was a scarce resource. Heroically, Jenny immediately mobilized vaccine teams at both UWMC Montlake and Northwest campuses to distribute the vaccine doses to community members throughout the night with the last vaccination being given around 5:00am. Her quick thinking and decision making led the health system to successfully use all of the doses and for her to have a direct impact on so many lives.

In addition to leading our mass vaccination response, she also was a critical operational leader of our COVID-19 testing sites and more recently of our response to the Monkey Pox epidemic.

Jenny is well respected by her peers and is a valued member of the larger team. Nick Postiglione, Director of Access Improvement worked closely with her on the Covid and Monkey Pox Vaccine team and shares his feeling that,

“As Operations Lead for the UW Medicine COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout, Jenny demonstrated exceptional dedication and commitment to ensuring that the vaccine was distributed quickly and efficiently. She has worked tirelessly to coordinate the efforts of a large, complex team and has consistently shown a commitment to quality in all aspects of her work. In addition, she showed a remarkable ability to use innovation and find creative solutions to the challenges that arose during the course of the distribution efforts. Her leadership has been instrumental in helping the team navigate the complexities of this unprecedented situation. She inspired and motivated others to go above and beyond in their efforts as well.”

In addition to her leadership within UW Medicine, Jenny has been involved in coordination with Public Health Seattle & King County, the Washington state Department of Health, the Washington State Hospital Association, and the Governor’s office advocating for UW Medicine through Vaccine deployment and community testing.

UW Medicine continues to be at the forefront of healthcare and serves as an example for other academic health systems around the country and world. Jenny’s leadership and prowess has had a strong influence on the success of the health system both operationally and amongst public reputation.

I enthusiastically submit my nomination of Jenny Brackett for the David Thorud Leadership award as a leader guiding UW Medicine through these times of uncertainty.

Sincerely,
Cynthia Dold, MPP, MPH
Interim President, Hospitals & Clinics, UW Medicine
Interim Vice President for Medical Affairs, University of Washington