Quoteworthy
When learners can safely acquire knowledge and skills, the patients cared for by the team and the future patients of the learners receive optimal care.
Kathleen Timme

Most Recent
Holiday Procrastination is Not Your Friend

Believe it or not, the holidays have arrived. But have no fear, Senior Value Engineer Cindy Spangler is here with three steps you can take to carve out time now and avoid the woes of the holiday rush.

How to Turn a Gut Feeling into a QI Project

Your gut tells you a process could be better than it is—how do you back that feeling up with hard data? Senior value engineer Luca Boi shows how undertaking a baseline analysis can jumpstart your improvement project.

Dissecting Utilization Review

Utilization Review is a necessary, but oftentimes messy process that ensures patients are receiving the most appropriate care in the most appropriate setting. Jenny Tuan, hospitalist and medical director of Utilization Review, dissects what UR is all about, including confusing gray areas and sticky pain points.

How to Conduct a Rapid Critical Appraisal

Performing a rapid critical appraisal helps evaluate a study for its worth by ensuring validity, meaningful data, and significance to the patient. Contributors Barb Wilson, Mary Jean Austria, and Tallie Casucci share a checklist of questions to complete a rapid critical appraisal efficiently and effectively.

What Improvement Taught Me About Gardening

Every summer, senior value engineer Cindy Spangler stocks our offices with an abundance of tomatoes, zucchini, and squash. We asked her to share how improvement thinking influences her gardening. Turns out, there are parallels–learn from others, stick to your scope, and learn from the mistakes.

Zero Suicide - How Do We Get There?

The Zero Suicide initiative has been shown to significantly reduce suicides—and working toward zero suicides is our mission. Rachael Jasperson, Zero Suicide program manager, shares the framework for how we strive for this aspirational goal.

Seven Principles of Value Management at University of Utah Health

What is “Value Management” and why should you care? It's how University of Utah Health systematically improves the quality of care delivered to patients—and its never been more important as we redesign care during a pandemic. Chief Quality Officer Sandi Gulbransen shares the seven tenets of Value Management that guide our work.

How To Put WellCheck Feedback to Work (For You and Your Team)

Feedback is a gift—even when it doesn’t feel like it. Senior Director of Care Navigation Stacy Silwany teams up with Organizational Development’s Michael Danielson to share how Care Navigation uses WellCheck survey data to learn from and engage employees in making the workplace better.

From Nursing to the Outdoors: Staying Safe and Preventing Injury

For National Injury Prevention Day, Spencer Steinbach, Senior Nursing Director, discusses safety and injury prevention in nursing and the outdoors and shares tips for your next adventure.

Right Tool, Right Team: The Power of Predictive Analytics

One of health care’s biggest ideas is predictive analytics — looking at large amounts of data to predict future patient behavior or outcomes. Jeff Young, Associate Director in Decision Support, worked with a multi-disciplinary team to put predictive analytics into action. Here, he shares why innovation is nothing without the team.

Fishbone Diagram: A Tool to Organize a Problem’s Cause and Effect

Problems. We all have them. Whether it’s a check engine light or an adverse patient safety event, we first need to discover what’s causing the problem before trying out solutions. Senior Value Engineer Luca Boi and a team of Oncology residents get to the root cause using a fishbone diagram.

Understanding Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches

Quantitative and qualitative methods are the engine behind evidence-based knowledge. Tallie Casucci, Gigi Austria, and Barbara Wilson provide a basic overview of how to differentiate between the two.