Laura Batz Townsend

President & Co-Founder

Eight years ago on April 14, 2009, Laura’s Mom, Louise H. Batz went to have routine knee surgery. Her surgery was successful, but then after a series oversights and medication errors on the General Floor, Louise went into respiratory depression and suffered an anoxic brain injury. 11 days later she passed away.

In her honor, Laura and her family created the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation (Batz Foundation) in the summer of 2009. Laura Batz Townsend and her family have turned heartbreak and loss into the promise of improved safety for hospital patients in San Antonio and across the country. Laura grew up in the medical community of San Antonio, with five physicians in her family. Laura entered the sports marketing and sports grant management field, where she has worked for 13 years. That family medical background combined with Laura’s organizational and development skills equipped her family to create the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation in the hope that others could avoid the family tragedy they experienced upon the untimely loss of their mother.

The mission of the Batz Foundation is to prevent medical errors by ensuring that patients and families have the knowledge they need for a safe hospital experience, and to support innovative advancements in patient safety. Our greatest hope is that patients, families, and caregivers will work together, as a team, to improve patient safety in our hospitals.

Over the past five years, since Louise tragically lost her life, the Batz Foundation has worked tirelessly to achieve our goal to open pathways of communication between patients, doctors, nurses, and hospitals in an effort to enhance hospital safety and prevent adverse events. In 2010, after her mother passed away, Laura met with medical leaders from all the major medical hospitals in San Antonio to present research on the risks of patient controlled analgesia (PCA) therapy and the need to improve PCA safety in San Antonio hospitals. Together, they successfully developed city-wide PCA safety initiatives that was introduced in the fall 2010 to all hospitals in San Antonio, with the goal to reduce preventable medication errors due to PCA therapy.

We believe it is important to empower the patient and family with knowledge about the type of care they will receive in order to make informed decisions and to create awareness and literature that is not only accessible, but easy for the patient to understand.

To accomplish this goal, the Batz Foundation has developed a number of tools:

• A patient safety website (https://www.louisebatz.org)
• A patient safety guide (The Batz Guide for Bedside Advocacy: Teaming up for the Patient) in English, Spanish, and Dutch.
• Pediatric Weezie’s Angels Guide
• Pediatric Transplant Guide, Empower Community Booklets, “ You and Your Health” in partnership with Head Start San Antonio
• An interactive App, “The Batz Patient Guide App” for all android and apple products
• Most recently, Breast Cancer Guide in partnership with Susan G. Komen San Antonio.

These tools were created by a devoted team of over 50 physicians, nurses, hospital administrators, patient safety leaders, families, and patients from San Antonio and across the country. These tools not only provide patients, families, and caregivers easy-to-understand and easy-to-follow checklists for every stage of the hospital stay, they provide information to help them understand hospital processes and standard treatment protocols and serve as an excellent resource for conversations with the clinician team. The Batz Foundation tools are being distributed not only In Texas but across the country and in South America and Europe.

The Batz Foundation believes that, by working together with a common purpose and vision, we can continue to bring change and improvements in tangible forms and implement them through programs and services that will improve the patient’s experience and change the culture of safety in our hospitals. Mrs. Townsend currently sits on the Board of Consumers Advancing Patient Safety (CAPS), The Chair for the Patient-Family Advisory Steering Committee for Seton Healthcare Family in Austin, Planetree Designation Committee, The Steering Committee for the Patient Safety Movement Foundation.

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Crystal Gomez

Development Director

Crystal joined the Batz Foundation in 2016 to work closely with philanthropists, funders, and strategic partners to ensure our patient safety programs and services are funded and can successfully serve the community. She is a Certified Nonprofit Professional from the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance and received her Master's Degree in Urban Planning and Public Policy from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Crystal has dedicated the past 12 years to working on community-wide initiatives ranging from community and economic development, affordable housing, children with special needs, addiction recovery, youth homelessness, and animal welfare. When Crystal is not working on community initiatives, she is busy spending time with her large extended family, her husband, and their energetic toddler.

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Sylvia Williams

Accounting Manager

I oversee the accounting division at the Louise H Batz Patient Safety Foundation. Having performed the same function at the San Antonio Sports Foundation for almost 5 years, I am confident that all issues and conflicts can be resolved with assertive confidence. (I am a Leo astrological sign) What I have done in my life is support others so that they can fulfill their abilities and goals. Now, accounting responsibilities include accounts payable, receivable, payroll, and bank review. Primarily in support, but I have an open ear to personnel.

Personal Experience

May 2015, thru current date

Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation

Accounting Manager

Jan. 2003 thru July 22, 2008

San Antonio Sports Foundation

Accounting Manager

June 1964 thru Sept. 2001

USAA, San Antonio, Tx.

The above positions were held during 37 years with USAA.  Retired from USAA in 2001.

Volunteer Experience

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Carol Wratten, MD, MBA, FACOG

Chief Clinical Director

Carol Wratten was trained as an Obstetrician Gynecologist and practiced in a single specialty group practice as the founding partner for 28 years. She held several medical leadership roles during that time. In 2007 she became Associate Regional Chief Medical Officer for the Baptist Health System in San Antonio and later the Chief Quality Officer for the Seton Healthcare System in Austin. During her time as a leader in healthcare administration her responsibilities have included; patient safety, patient and associate experience, healthcare quality, and performance improvement.

Her work included the introduction of LEAN for managing the rapid change required in healthcare today. All members of the healthcare team were engaged in continuous improvement of systems and processes for the benefit of patients and families when using Lean tools and a daily management system.

She was trained at the University of North Carolina for Medical School. Did her residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and received a Master’s of Business at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Dr. Wratten has been on the Batz Board from its inception is currently working with the Foundation as the Director of Clinical Services to assist partner organizations in the implementation of the Batz Guides to recognize patients as full members of the healthcare team to achieve safety.

The Batz Foundation Tools pair perfectly to align patients and providers in a common goal of providing truly excellent person centered care.

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Carol Kussmann

For over 30 years, Carol has dedicated her professional career to education and philanthropic initiatives for public education (K-16) and nonprofits. She began working for the Batz Foundation in 2014 as a grant writer, researching potential donors and writing proposals to fund programs and resources necessary to support patient safety and further the mission of the Foundation. Carol received her Master of Education from Houston Baptist University in 2003 and her Bachelor of Science in Communication from The University of Texas at Austin in 1987. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and six beautiful children in New England.

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Megan Morrison, PharmD

Community Engagement Liaison

Megan became involved with the Batz Foundation in 2015 to assist with community engagement and outreach.  She now fulfills a key role in the Empower project, which focuses on the development of community health empowerment tools.  Born and raised in San Antonio, Megan is a huge Spurs fan and enjoys hiking, cooking, and playing with her dog, Parker.

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Stephanie Mandujano

Community Health Director

Stephanie has grown from a coordinator to a leadership role for the Empower project, which she joined in 2015. When Stephanie is not meeting with the Empower team or working at Methodist Healthcare Ministries, she runs for fun and spends quality time with her boyfriend, friends, and family.

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Dr. Veronica Young, PharmD, MPH

Consultant, Community Engagement and Program Assessment

Dr. Young collaborates with the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation to develop population-specific educational resources that target patient safety through patient and family health empowerment.  Additionally, she guides quality improvement and program assessment.
Dr. Young received her Doctor of Pharmacy degree from Creighton University, Omaha, NE, and completed a pharmacy practice residency at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis and a specialty practice residency in drug information and evidence-based practice at The University of Texas (UT) Health Science Center in San Antonio.  She went on to earn a Master of Public Health degree from the UT Houston School of Public Health.  Dr. Young is currently a Clinical Associate Professor in the Division of Health Outcomes and Pharmacy Practice and Director of Interprofessional Education and Community Engagement at The University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy.
Dr. Young’s practice and scholarly interests focus on patient safety, quality improvement and population health, with an emphasis on incorporating interprofessional education (IPE) and community engagement.  She has championed the development of numerous interprofessional academic-community partnerships aimed at addressing health disparity, health literacy and patient empowerment through quality improvement and capacity building.  She is a certified Master Trainer for TeamSTEPPS and a certified facilitator for the Community Action Poverty Simulation.
Dr. Young is named a UT System Fellow in Clinical Safety and Effectiveness, and is recipient of the San Antonio Preceptor-of-the-Year Award and the UT Austin Teaching Excellence Award.  She is a 2014 recipient of the UT System Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award.

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Louise Termeer

Representative Netherlands and Chile at The Louise Batz Patient Safety Foundation

Louis Ter Meer has been working with the Batz Foundation since 2013 and is responsible for implementing the Batz Guide in health care centers in Dutch speaking countries; he is also in charge of setting up a new version of the Batz App that will function on iPad, iPhone, android and PC in English, Spanish and Dutch.
Louis, who holds the Dutch nationality, has over 25 years of experience in managing large projects and changing organizational cultures in various governmental departments in The Netherlands. He holds an MBA degree in change management, and is an expert in applying methodologies such as Agile, Lean, PMBok, Prince2 and “Critical Change”. He has extensive experience in management consulting, change management, strategic planning, supervising and auditing large and complex projects.
Louis is also Director Innovation and Development of Planetree Latin America.

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Dr. Etel Veringa

Representative Netherlands and Chile at The Louise Batz Patient Safety Foundation

Etel Veringa has been working with the Batz Foundation since 2013 and is responsible for implementing the Guide and App in health care centers in Spanish speaking countries. She supervises the translation of the Guide into Spanish and Dutch.
Etel holds the Dutch nationality, and is a physician with over 25 years of experience in medical microbiology and infectious diseases. She worked in various hospitals in the Netherlands and in the US, both as a clinician, a researcher and a teacher. Etel has 20 years of experience in health care management; she was the Director of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Prevention of Infectious Diseases and President of the Board of Physicians of her hospital in the Netherlands.
Etel is also general director of Planetree Latin America.

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Whitney Ball

Social Media Coordinator

Whitney Ball handles social media for the Batz Foundation. She truly enjoys sharing the mission of the foundation and connecting with people who are deeply passionate about patient safety. If Whitney is not refreshing all The Batz social media feeds, you can find her searching for the perfect breakfast tacos or spending time in the Texas Hill Country with friends and family. For Social Media inquiries please use our contact form.

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