Newsroom Archive

Jim Graves, Executive Director of the Departments of Respiratory Therapy and Neurodiagnostics at JPS Health Network, has been named Respiratory Care Manager of the Year by the Texas Society for Respiratory Care.

It was an honor that left the seven-year veteran of the health network both surprised and grateful.

Four JPS team members stationed at the Tarrant County Corrections Center in downtown Fort Worth are moving up in the working world thanks, in part, to freedom afforded them by their employer.

Hidden away on its Fort Worth main campus lies the nerve center of telephonic communication at JPS Health Network.

There, an incredible maze of thousands of wires lines the walls and the ceiling, a blue and red twist of spaghetti. It’s Joe Richardson’s job to make sure all those lines are correctly connected. His formal title is telecommunications technician. But to the people who summon him for help whenever they need assistance in making a connection, he’s more commonly known as Joe the Phone Guy.

You don’t often see them. But the Tarrant County Hospital District Police Department communications officers are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week, looking out for you.

In a dimly lit room behind a locked door, the communications officers – also known as dispatchers -- are constantly vigilant, scanning two walls of monitors for any sign of trouble. At the same time, they’re working the phones and radios on which they answer calls of distress and queries for information, sending the right people to the right place whenever they’re needed.

His office location and the equipment he uses on a daily basis have changed over the course of his 24 years at JPS Health Network.

Still, radiology technologist Jon Lawson’s love for his patients, his colleagues and the work he does has always remained the same.

Sometimes it just takes a moment to put yourself on the path to a better day.

That’s the philosophy behind a new, twice a day meeting for both patients and team members in the Trinity Springs Pavilion at JPS Health Network.

“Since June, we’ve been holding what we call Mindful Moments,” said Lee Ann Franklin, Executive Director of Spiritual Care and Ethics. “It’s an opportunity to concentrate on self-care. Hopefully, these gatherings will give people some new tools to cope with those things.”

When Mary Starr started working at JPS in 1954, her job was to flip burgers in the snack bar.

It didn’t take long before her career was the thing that was turned upside down, however. After only six months on the job she left her spatula and apron behind to become a nurse’s aide.

JPS Health Network has joined with pharmaceutical company NeuroRX to conduct clinical trials of a drug program that has the potential to greatly reduce the number suicides among people struggling with bipolar disorder.

According to Dr. Cynthia Claassen, Director of Research and Education at the health network, the work is groundbreaking because there is currently no indicated drug therapy specifically for people with bipolar depression including suicidal inclinations. Suicide has become a nationwide problem, and the Dallas-Fort Worth area is no exception.

The efforts of a JPS Health Network social worker have made all the difference for one homeless Fort Worth resident who, until recently, just couldn’t seem to stay out of the hospital.

Organizers are hopeful a June blood drive at JPS health Network will draw a big crowd of donors, building up vital reserves to last through the summer months.

The time of year when kids are out of school is the time when collecting blood is the most difficult, according to Vickie Carpenter, Operation Manager of Recruitment at Dallas-Fort Worth blood bank Carter BloodCare. It’s also the time when blood is the most needed because people are traveling and moving about, increasing the number of traumatic accidents that occur on area roadways.