Connect Newsletter
July 31, 2025 |
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 Your 2025-2026 Employee Benefits Guide
Open Enrollment for your 2025-2026 benefits is just around the corner, running from Aug. 4-22. This is your opportunity to review and select the benefits that best meet your needs. To help you make informed decisions, we've compiled important resources and updates all in one place. Click here to view the following: As a reminder, employees and professional staff will be mailed print editions of their respective benefits guide soon. Until then, we encourage you to review all materials and reach out to the Human Resources Benefits team if you have any questions. |
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 Stan Davis Announces His Retirement
After 19 years, Stan Davis, President of Cook Children's Medical Center- Fort Worth, has announced his retirement. Please take a moment to watch his announcement and learn more about his story at Cook Children's. Click here to watch his story. |
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 New Badges Coming Soon
Natalie Wilkins, Vice President of Operations at Cook Children's, gives us a sneak peek at the new employee identification badges. These new badges will include - First name and the initial of your last name for staff including managers
- First name and last name for directors and above
- Up to three credentials
- A badge buddy sleeve to accompany your ID
For more information, please watch our video here. |
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Healing Together: A New Era of Partnership and Prevention on the Las Vegas TrailCook Children's and JPS Health Network have been beacons of health and hope in Tarrant County for well over a century. Now, for the first time, the two organizations have linked arms and unified their resources to deliver whole-family health and wellness services at the new neighborhood health center serving the Las Vegas Trail area. We have a lot of great information to share with you to celebrate the opening of this great facility: VIDEO: New Neighborhood Health Center Serving Las Vegas Trail Families  Articles:
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 Sidewalk Along Eighth Avenue CLOSED To Pedestrians
To our employees and staff who park in the Terrell and 8th Parking Garage on our Fort Worth Medical Center campus, the sidewalk along the east side of Eighth Avenue between Cooper Street and Terrell Avenue will be CLOSED beginning at 8 a.m. on Aug. 1. This closure will continue for the entirety of the West Tower project. To navigate this change, please use the sidewalks along Terrell and Seventh avenues to access the Medical Center-Fort Worth and Dodson Specialty Clinics. We highly recommend that you plan ahead for your commute and allow extra time to reach your destination and report for your shift at your scheduled time. Thank you for your flexibility and patience. |
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 ServiceNow Employee Center is Live Aug. 9: Faster Help, Smarter Self-Service, All in One Place
Information Services is excited to share a new digital intranet portal that provides Cook Children’s employees with a single point of access to request hardware/software, report issues, request optimizations, assess system status, and see updates on their tickets. This portal will also be home to an extensive library of tip sheets on topics from software tips to Epic and Workday guides. The system even uses AI to recommend helpful tip sheets to provide self-service-and avoid the need for a service ticket. Additionally, we are excited to be one of the first health care systems to integrate this portal into Epic, allowing staff to report issues directly from inside Epic. With a few clicks, staff can auto-pull workstation and patient data into a service ticket to expedite issue reporting-all without leaving Epic. Staff can even live chat with an IS staff member in this Epic integrated window. Continue to watch internal communications for more information as we get closer to this August go live of ServiceNow Employee Center. Information Services is excited to improve your technology experiences. For more information visit their CookNet site and view their intro videos here ServiceNow. |
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 August is Well-being Month
Begin with You and Be Well! August is Well-Being Month @ Cook Children’sWe have the great privilege of working at a very special place where we strive to uphold Our Promise to do “everything for the child” and we know that each of you are giving it your all here at work, and at home too. Focus on You August is Well-being Month at Cook Children’s. This is the perfect time to take a collective deep breath and take some time to focus on yourself. It’s important to first take care of ourselves so we in turn can care for others. When we take time for personal and professional well-being it’s easier to find the energy and motivation to show up as our best selves each day. We’ve brought together different teams from across the system to plan a variety of meaningful well-being activities including speaker sessions, self-care classes, connection events and a fun way to try out some new well-being activities - WellBingo. Our goal is to connect you to the programs, benefits, and resources offered at Cook Children’s to help you thrive at work and home. The best way to learn about everything happening for Well-being Month is to visit the Well-being Month Page on the Team Experience CookNet site. We encourage you to know what is happening this month so you can prioritize your well-being and take part in whatever activities are beneficial to you. Links to register for classes, more details on activities and the Well-bingo card can be found here.  Highlights of August - Well-being Month
- Well-being Speaker Sessions & Quality Quick Topic: New this year, our speakers sessions focus on important topics like brain health & working in a fast-paced environment, how to thrive while living the sandwich generation, begin with you – the importance of self-care, caring for you – Cook Children’s well-being task force, plus an interactive session to explore your personal well-being and how you can make positive changes. Speaker sessions will be live on the Fort Worth campus plus live streamed and recorded. Recordings will be posted so you can watch later on-demand.
- Well-being Classes: this year includes popular virtual and in-person classes and webinars like Compassion Fatigue, Health & Stress Management, Vitamin Be and Vitamin Z plus a weekly webinar from Nicole Porter and a Fidelity webinar on Social Security Basics.
- Well-being Events & Activities:
- Personify Health app: Learn more about the app and how it can help you with your well-being goals. There’s a chance to win a gift card for signing up in the month of August. Or if you’re already signed up, there’s a chance to win a gift card after you complete a journey of your choice in the Personify Health app.
- Beat the Heat Treat: Connect with your colleagues and teams at Beat the Heat Treat in August (see in-person schedule and inter-department transfer information for off-site and remote teams).
- Well-Bingo: Find a work buddy or invite your team to do Well-bingo and take part in a variety of well-being activities and the chance to win a gift card.
Visit the Well-being page on CookNet for more details on the events and activities above. Be sure to watch for weekly updates and reminders for Well-being Month on Cook Children’s Internal Communication channels.  Cook Children’s follows the CDC/NIOSH definition of well-being: A state in which people perceive their lives as going well, including aspects of their physical, emotional, and psychological health, productivity, and economic well-being.
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 Annual Competencies Due Friday, Aug. 1
As a reminder, all assigned annual competencies in ULearn must be completed by August 1. Completing assigned competencies on time helps ensure your annual performance review is not delayed. We truly appreciate your attention to these important learning requirements. To review and complete assignments, log into the ULearn system and check your curriculum tab. Competencies are assigned across the organization, so everyone should take a moment to verify their progress. |
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 Flu Vaccines 2025
To help protect our patient families, fellow employees and the community, all employees are required to receive the annual influenza vaccine by Oct. 17. To start the process, electronic consent forms become available on Aug. 4 on the Enterprise Health portal. In addition, in-person Flu Vaccine Fairs will kick off Sept. 16. To learn more about deadlines and how to get your flu vaccine, visit this page for complete details. |
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Don't Miss Events This August we have lots of fun events happening across our system. Please view our list of events happening this week and to view more happening this month visit our calendar on CookNet. - Aug. 6 – Beat the Heat Treat at Home Health*
- Aug. 7 - Benefits Fair at Fort Worth Medical Center*
- Aug. 7 - Fidelity Webinar at 11 a.m. please register here.
- Aug. 8 - Benefits Fair at Prosper Medical Center*
- Aug. 8 – Beat the Heat Treat at Child Study Center*
* Events are put on by Team Experience to celebrate Well-being Month for more information and to view future speakers visit the Team Experience CookNet page. |
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Share Your Content with UsDo you have any tips, ideas or content you would like us to know about? We want to hear from you! Please view our SharePoint site and email us at InternalCommunications@cookchildrens.org. Check our CookNet calendar for more system-wide events and to find more content about our employees and news you need to know, bookmark our Connect Newsroom website. |
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