About Accelerate Learning Community

University of Utah Health’s online learning community for health care professionals.

Established in 2016, Accelerate is a novel community-based model for innovating and promoting best practices in health care impact, improvement, leadership, and resilience. Over the past eight years, hundreds of frontline faculty, staff and trainees have collaborated to share the stories of their work. As a result, our articles are adopted in formal clinician training programs and across campus. Articles are also used in informal learning, workplace training, staff meetings and system-wide communications.

Our Purpose

Build community through stories.

We share stories from the frontlines of
health care each week.

Connect people and ideas.

We develop novel technology that
supports social learning.

Editors — make it engaging

Accelerate editors are the heart of the community.

They guide the tone, style, substance and quality of our content.

isaac holyoak

Day job:  Associate Director – Public Relations and Communication, UUMG, U of U Health.

Superpower:  Master storyteller who always has the perfect turn of phrase.

Isaac Holyoak
Deputy Editor
trell inzunza

Day job: Nursing Director – Nursing Support Services, U of U Health.

Superpower: Passionate system improvement leader and collaborative critical thinker.

Trell Inzunza
Associate Editor
trinh mai

Day job: Mindfulness Teacher & Social Worker – Resiliency Center, Wellness and Integrative Health, U of U Health.

Superpower: Skilled mindfulness educator who empowers people to access the wisdom of their bodies, hearts and minds.

Trinh Mai
Deputy Editor
ryan murphy

Day job: Hospitalist – Assistant Professor of Medicine, GME Director for Quality & Safety, U of U Health.

Superpower: Innovator of web-based curriculum and health care system improvement leader.

Ryan Murphy
Associate Editor
timme kathleen

Day job: Physician – Pediatric Endocrinology, U of U Health.

Superpower: Fearless connector who is transforming how we think about clinician education.

Kathleen Timme
Associate Editor
chrisitan sherwood

Day job: Director – Communication and Recognition, Human Resources, U of U Health.

Superpower: Logophile and master communicator who brings clarity and simplicity to every exchange.

Christian Sherwood
Deputy Editor
cindy spangler
Austen Diamond Photograhy

Day job: Senior Value Engineer – System Quality, Patient Safety and Value, U of U Health.

Superpower: Natural educator who translates challenging concepts with levity and practicality.

Cindy Spangler
Associate Editor
iona thraen

Day job: Director of Patient Safety – System Quality, Patient Safety and Value, U of U Health.

Superpower: Gifted systems thinker and bioinformaticist who specializes in patient safety.

Iona Thraen
Associate Editor
zac watne

Day job: Senior Manager – Payment Strategy & Innovation, Payer Relations & Contracting, U of U Health.

Superpower: Network entrepreneur and skilled translator of complex concepts with levity and clarity.

Zac Watne
Associate Editor
luca
@Kristan Jacobsen

Day job: Senior Value Engineer – System Quality, Patient Safety and Value, U of U Health.

Superpower:  Insightful educator who brings human connection to complex concepts.

Luca Boi
Associate Editor

Editors are effective communicators.

With significant health care expertise and communication chops, they provide context, connection and subject matter expertise.

Learning Collaboratives — make it systemic

University of Utah Health Patient Design Studio is a small group of patients who meet with improvers from across the health care system. The designers are both patients and caregivers. Some are healthy, some are chronically ill; some feel comfortable with technology and others are technology novices. All are passionate about improving the delivery of health care for patients and provide thoughtful feedback about specific improvement projects from patient education to wayfinding and beyond.

Advise Utah (virtual) is an online community of patients that provides targeted feedback about specific projects to improvers across the health care system through a short monthly survey. This targeted feedback is used to help improve health care delivery for patients at University of Utah Health and brings a wider variety of voices to our in-person Patient Design Studio. If you are interested in joining the conversation, email epe@hsc.utah.edu.

Patient Experience is a system-wide initiative that helped establish U of U Health’s cultural foundation of patient-centered care. Based on an intricate operational process that has been developed over the past 10 years, Patient Experience supports data transparency, infusion of the patient voice, and continuous engagement of nearly every member of our clinical faculty and workforce. An outgrowth of Patient Experience, Accelerate has always been a partner in sharing the stories of our dedicated health care teams.

Learn more about Patient Experience here.

The Resiliency Center promotes individual and system resilience as integral to the work of caring for patients, producing innovative research, and training future health care professionals. The Resiliency Center serves as a hub for coordinating organization-wide wellness services, advocacy efforts, and innovative programming. They provide resources essential to professional fulfillment. We are honored to call the Resiliency Center a partner in sharing stories of resilience in health care.

Well-Systems is our current collaborative to promote rapid well-being resources and communication in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Learn more about the Resiliency Center here.

System Quality, comprising the departments of Quality, Infection Prevention, Accreditation, Patient Safety, and Value Engineering, provides the extensive support network required to ensure the safety and quality of over one million annual patient visits. They exceed the stringent ISO9001 compliance standards and conduct value improvement efforts to increase quality and affordability. It’s no wonder U of U Health makes the annual short list of top ranked academic centers in the nation. We are honored to call System Quality a partner in sharing stories of health care improvement.

Safety Stories and Problem Solving collaboratives promote a culture of safety and problem solving.

Learn more about System Quality here.

Nurse Leader Rounding is an inpatient (UH, NRH, HCH, UOC) nursing initiative focused on helping nurse leaders develop and implement a rounding practice to identify opportunities for improvement and staff recognition. Nurse leaders dedicate time to visit with patients to discuss safety concerns, pain needs, plan of care, and communication with staff. In return, they are able to gain real-time feedback, perform immediate service recovery, and follow-up with staff with both compliments and constructive feedback. 

Learn more about Nurse Leader Rounding here.

Complete Clinician is a group of clinician educators who are working to integrate relationship management skills into medical training to help create a more well-rounded, complete clinician. The collaborative is focused on developing a suite of supporting education materials designed to build on the existing “Complete Clinician Model” framework, further exploring catalysts and barriers to training, Golden Quadrant domains, and other Complete Clinician Model concepts. 

Contact Emily Izzo with any questions about Learning Collaboratives.

Operations — makes it happen
mari ransco

Day job: Director – Patient Experience and Accelerate, U of U Health. As founder and Editor in Chief, Mari has spent the last three years pioneering Accelerate’s method for capturing and sharing workplace stories.

Mari Ransco
Founder and Editor in Chief
kim mahoney
@Kristan Jacobsen

Day job: Senior Manager – Accelerate, U of U Health. As founder and Community Director Kim has combined the many disparate parts that form Accelerate product, strategy and community instructional design. 

Kim Mahoney
Founder and Community Director
marcie hopkins

Day job: Manager – Human-Centered Design, Patient Experience and Accelerate, U of U Health. As founder and Design Director, Marcie merges creative direction, trademark style, and data visualization for an exceptional learning experience.

Marcie Hopkins
Founder and Design Director
Kevin Pompei

Day job: Administrative Director – Genetic Science Learning Center. As backend developer for Accelerate, Kevin brings behind the scenes bells and whistles you experience but don’t see.

Kevin Pompei
Backend Developer
pete thumb

Day job: Software Engineer III 


As an experience software engineer for Accelerate


ontend developer for Accelerate, Pete brings Accelerate to life—everything you’re seeing on this website right now was made possible by Pete.

Pete Anderson
Frontend Developer
emily thumb

Day job: Project Administrator – Accelerate, U of U Health. Emily brings positive energy and project management prowess to every aspect of the learning community.

Emily Izzo
Project Administrator
002 hp kristen mauk 9 20 2016
@Kristan Jacobsen

Day job: Senior Analyst — Patient Experience and Accelerate, U of U Health. Kristen brings serious analytics chops with both quantitative and qualitative expertise, she hones our experience metrics to meet community needs.

Kristen Mauck
Experience Analyst
shayma

Day job: Learning Community Coordinator – Accelerate, U of U Health. Shayma is a super connector with a passion for activism. She brings fresh eyes to all aspects of media production and community engagement.

Shayma Salih
Learning Community Coordinator