Quoteworthy
As health care professionals, we think we know what’s best, but we need to design care with patients, not just for patients.
Cori Agarwal and Ariel Malan

Most Recent
Words Matter: Words that Wound vs. Words that Soothe

Our words can build, or erode, trust with others. Manager of Patient Experience Operations Ember Hunsaker offers insight into how our words may be helping, or harming, those around us and how to balance the scales.

5 Ways You Can Contribute to the UUHC Operational Plan

In an organization as big as U of U Health, it’s hard to know where our work fits into the big picture. System Planning Manager Cassandra Taft highlights five ways teams can meaningfully contribute to Operational Plan priorities, regardless of job role or responsibility.

Ask These Four Questions Before Starting Any Improvement

Hospitalist Ryan Murphy and Value Engineer Luca Boi outline four questions to address at the outset of any improvement.

Listen-Sort-Empower to Improve Professional Well-being

What can we do right now to make our work environment better? Chief Wellness Officer and family medicine physician Amy Locke shares a simple team-based model for identifying opportunities, sorting what’s feasible and impactful, and empowering the frontline to lead change.

Shared Governance: A Foundation for a Culture of Nursing Excellence

Magnet Program Director Mary-Jean (Gigi) Austria explains how Nursing Shared Governance provides support for knowledge sharing, clinical skill building, and collaborative decision-making closest to the point of care.

What Goldilocks Can Teach You About Problem Statements

Internal medicine residents Brian Sanders and Matt Christensen team up with senior value engineer Luca Boi to explain why investing your time honing a well-defined problem statement can pay dividends later in the ultimate success of a QI project.

Standard Work

Standard work is the most efficient way to accomplish a job quickly and accurately supported by visual guides. VA internist Sarah Hall and nurse practitioner Jamie Clinton-Lont team up with senior value engineer Luca Boi to share how they used standard work to make pain management safer for veterans.

How to Set a SMART Goal

SMART Goals are a great starting point for any project. Project management expert Kripa Kuncheria helps us organize our teams’ efforts by outlining this goal setting framework with a simple step-by-step guide to try right now.

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.

Lean Tips for Holiday Pie Making

Every Thanksgiving, Accelerate’s Marcie Hopkins makes not just one, but multiple pies to enjoy. To maximize efficiency, she teamed up with Farmington manager Matt Sanford to design the perfect process. And—of course—there’s a health care application as well.

Be Mindful and Educate Yourself: Black Patient Voices

The crises of Covid-19 and police brutality have highlighted systemic racial inequity in the United States and the need to consciously dismantle the forces that cause racial health disparities. PA students Scarlett Reyes and Jocelyn Cortez brought together Black patients at the University of Utah to share their experiences. Their advice: build cultural competence and be mindful of microaggressions.

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.