Much of the national dialogue about health care costs focuses on payment reform and the power of market forces. Researchers compared the price-sensitivity of decisions between health care and pet care. The big idea—don’t lose sight of emotions when tackling the problem of health care costs.

Chief Medical Quality Officer interviews Dr. Mark Eliason, Department of Dermatology’s chief value officer. Dr. Eliason talks about what he has learned about engaging the entire team in improvement and how he is trying to make the clinical lives of dermatologists a bit easier.

Trust. That’s what we want. We want to earn and keep the trust of every patient. We want them to trust that we provide the best possible medical care. But more than that, we want them to trust that we will respond to their needs, coordinate our efforts, and provide them with available options. We want them to trust that we will answer our phones, explain their treatment, and value their time. The exceptional patient experience is an enterprise-wide system designed to deliver a singular output: trust. And, this enterprise-wide system is built on trusting our providers and our teams.

Part 1 was on how to build a box and whisker plot. In Part 2 we're defining whisker length and visualizing variation within and between the variable groups. This time we're giving you answers to the questions no one has asked.

What is a box and whisker plot? Why do I need a box and whisker plot? How do I construct a box and whisker plot (sometimes shortened to “box plot”) in Excel 2013 or lower? It's a day in the deep weeds, dojo folks. Steve heard your questions and has dedicated the next two dojos to giving you all the answers.

The process to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is confusing to say the least. That’s why we're lucky to have Hailey Bandy as an interpreter. As Associate General Counsel, she watches health care policy and analyzes its impact on U of U Health. Medical Group contributor Isaac Holyoak interviewed Bandy about the big changes afoot.

We asked Zac Watne, Utah’s payment innovation manager (he gets paid to understand the volatile world of payment reform) to give us a primer on “bundles.” Regardless of change happening in health care, thought leaders predict that payment reform, and specifically, bundled payments, are here to stay. Why? Bundles deliver care with improved outcomes at a lower price all over the United States. In this post, Zac outlines the difference between voluntary and mandatory bundles.

There are two big buzzwords in healthcare – one is value-based care, and the other is population health. In this podcast, Chief Medical Quality Officer Bob Pendleton interviews Dr. Peter Weir. As executive medical director of population health, it's Dr. Weir's job to set the tone and direction for pop health, moving it from buzz to action. This is no small feat.

After all, we are a lean six sigma operation, and DMAIC is a standard methodology. At Utah, we’ve adopted a revised improvement methodology. In this week’s post of Steve’s Dojo (or continuing Lean Six Sigma education), Steve explains why.

What is the most important skill that health care leaders need? According to a recent NEJM Catalyst survey, it's building culture. But what are "culture skills" and how does one actually build them? Chrissy Daniels curates culture lessons from Accelerate case studies and finds that, although our business school doesn't currently offer the MCA, when they do, we will have faculty ready to teach.

Why use the honest histogram and reliable run chart? They contain more information and communicate it with greater clarity than the deceptive duo of mean and standard deviation. In this week's post of Steve's Dojo (or continuing Lean Six Sigma education), Steve puts the data in plain perspective.

Real teams are the antidote to the chaos of modern medicine. “Real teams know each other, feel loyalty to one another, trust one another, and would not want to disappoint one another” (Tom Lee, NEJM Catalyst 2016). Practicing are conversations between real team members about why the work matters. Our goal is to preserve and share the stories of the teams at University of Utah Healthcare.