General Surgery resident Josh Bleicher spent a year exploring opioid prescribing patterns in patients discharged after elective surgery. What did he find? We need a more patient-centered approach to opioid prescribing.
Thinking about teams differently did more than improve our inpatient discharge process. It gave everyone a shared vision: every single patient in the right bed, at the right time. Patients now leave the hospital earlier, all while monthly discharges have increased. Tracey Nixon, director of capacity management, shares how they did it.
Alison Flynn Gaffney defines herself as a servant leader. As U of U Health’s Executive Director of Service Lines, Ancillary and Support Services, she brings more than two decades of experience in strategic, operations, and consulting roles at academic medical centers and community hospitals. Here are Alison’s expert tips for effective servant leadership.
Palliative care teams focus on treating the symptoms and stress of serious illness. Nate Wanner, Associate Medical Director of U of U Health’s Palliative Care Program, discusses how palliative care not only improves the quality of a patient’s life, but supports other clinical teams in one of the most challenging (and rewarding) parts of caring for people: having hard conversations.
Can improvement science help with New Year’s resolutions? Try using this handy SMART goal generator to create concrete, clearly defined SMART goals to set yourself up for success.
The pace of technological progress can make it seem like solutions to our health care problems are only a click away. Howard Weeks, Utah’s interim chief medical information officer, lauds the virtues of technology with this caveat: you can’t IT your way out of every problem.
Over two years ago, we launched Accelerate–University of Utah Health’s learning community. It has been rewarding, inspiring, and fun to share Utah’s work with nearly 50,000 readers, some of them from across the world. Everybody loves a year-end list, so here are Accelerate’s awards for 2018.
Revenue Cycle Support Services is the backbone of Utah’s financial system – from insurance prior authorizations to processing billions of dollars in claims and payments. Their leadership team, led by administrative director Kathy Delis, has been on a years-long journey to make this work better both for patients and employees. Here, she shares how she brought meaning, purpose, and a sense of community to the team.
University of Utah Health is committed to tackling a major problem in health care today: burnout. Last year, 40 teams spread across an enormous health system took on the challenge. We sat down with family physician and co-director of the Resiliency Center Amy Locke to learn about what works in improving faculty and staff wellness.
In 2011, Utah’s Intermediate Care Unit (IMCU) decided to improve patient safety through a new approach: engage the entire team in identifying and implementing the improvement. Clinical Operations Director Trell Inzunza shares the 4-step process that engaged the entire team to improve.
Parkway medical director Brett Clayson leads one of the highest patient-rated clinics at U of U Health – but it wasn’t always that way. Here are the five leadership principles he used to transform his small, out-of-the-way clinic. Hint: Start with your strengths.
Waiting is such a firmly entrenched feature of health care that it is often expected. The solution starts with the team. Orthopaedic athletic trainer Ian Crossett details the 4-step, team-driven process that sends a message of respect for everyone: provider, patient and team.
