George B. Hernández, the former longtime president and CEO of University Health, received a lifetime achievement award for his role in transforming Bexar County’s hospital system into a nationally recognized public health system.
Hernández is one of three people to receive the Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience Lifetime Achievement award from BioMedSA, a nonprofit that has supported the health care and bioscience industries in San Antonio since 2005.
BioMedSA hosted its annual award ceremony at the Tobin Center on Tuesday.
Hernández spent 34 years at University Health in total. He served as president and CEO of the public health system from 2005 until he retired in 2024.
Under his leadership, University Health expanded care for underserved populations and made huge infrastructure investments at its hospital in the South Texas Medical Center. That includes the 1-million-square-feet Robert B. Green Pavilion Sky Tower extension in 2014 and the $573 million Women’s and Children’s Hospital that opened in 2023.
University Health is also in the midst of a $1.5 billion expansion, which includes the construction of two five-story hospitals on the Southwest and Northeast sides of San Antonio.
“As I look across the last 40 years or so in our city, and I look at the outstanding people who have been leaders, elected to office, or had major public responsibilities, George is absolutely one of the finest public officials we have in the recent history of San Antonio,” said Henry Cisneros, former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and San Antonio’s mayor from 1981-89.
Hernández was also critical in developing Community First Health Plans, which is University Health’s nonprofit health insurance provider.
“We put a lot of emphasis when I became CEO on making sure that we represented all of our county and community,” Hernández said. “Yes, our mission was to represent the uninsured. There was care if you’re uninsured. But how we did it, I think, was unique. We did it by expanding care for everyone, and then everyone benefits.”
Hernández credited much of University Health’s success to simply getting the best people on board.
“I was more of a symphony conductor than actually any of the instrument players,” he said. “I concentrated my efforts at my level getting the right people on the bus, and I think the rest of things take care of themselves.”
Innovation award
BioMedSA also named Texas Biomedical Research Institute President Larry Schlesinger as this year’s Innovation in Healthcare and Bioscience Award honoree, citing the growth at the private research institute that has taken place under his leadership.
Since its founding in 1941, Texas Biomed has grown into an international name in research and science, with a focus on infectious diseases. Some of the research institute’s landmark accomplishments include advancing the COVID-19 vaccine, discovering the initial Ebola treatment and developing the first Hepatitis-C therapy.
Schlesinger has led the institute since 2017. Since then, Texas Biomed has almost doubled its staff and evolved its business model with the goal of moving research toward federal approval faster, according to BioMedSA.
“Patience is not one of my attributes,” Schlesinger said. “I always wanted to not make incremental advances. I want to make leaps, and leaps take great team effort.”
Schlesinger and San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones spoke about the uncertainties facing the bioscience and health care fields amid federal funding cuts and skepticism of vaccines from U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“We are doing this work in light of, frankly, a very different landscape than what we had just a year ago. Those in very powerful positions actively questioning long held public health doctrine,” Jones said. “The changes in the public health landscape are the ones that are most concerning to me, and the ones that, as I look at our budget and our actions and where we try to ensure we have sufficient resiliency, those are the areas where I am most concerned.”
Texas Biomed contributed to the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccine during the pandemic. Kennedy’s administration vastly restricted access to the vaccine this year.
“When an administration comes into office, they often shift priorities,” Schlesinger said. “But the amount of uncertainty, tumult, hostility, is unprecedented. We need to ask ourselves the question of whether the United States continues to be the gold standard. And I think some of the policies that we’re coming up against these days are are negatively impacting that.”
