In this provocative thought piece, hospitalists and system leaders Kencee Graves and Bob Pendleton explain the “team of teams” approach to becoming more nimble, responsive, and adaptable to the demands of our changing world.
Innovative teams solve problems by being curious, not by assigning blame. Environmental Services’ James Mwizerwa and Cooper Riley explain their deliberative approach to the long-standing and complex problem of getting inpatient rooms ready for the next patient.
We pride ourselves on advocating for our patients, our colleagues, and ourselves—but could this approach be holding us back? As a pediatrician who cares for medically fragile children with complex needs, Michelle Hofmann examines how asking different questions can help us arrive at better decisions.
Four years ago, U of U Health established the Patient Design Studio—a monthly meeting where patients give feedback to frontline teams generating system improvements. Four years of deep listening and feedback reveal three insights applicable to anyone looking to make their care more patient-centered.
Patients will ask three things of us over the next decade of health care improvement: help me live my best life, make being a patient easier, and make care affordable. To meet those needs health care must shift—from organizing around a patient’s biology to understanding the patient’s biography.
Every year, Cindy Spangler hosts ‘Friendsgiving’ for over forty friends, family, and work colleagues. Cindy is also a senior value engineer and associate editor for Accelerate. So we asked: what is the process behind a successful Thanksgiving?
Sometimes the most impactful change comes from simply asking, “Why are we doing things this way?” Pediatric infectious disease professor Adam Hersh explains the impact of practice inertia on antibiotic treatment in pediatric patients, and how questioning the status quo improved outcomes and reduced cost.
This post is inspired by a few cartoons Linda Tyler shared with us a few years back. Just for fun, we thought we’d check in with our resident expert Cindy Spangler–value engineer and modern-day renaissance woman–for some cartoon captions that scream happy lean Halloween!
Utah’s Chief Medical Quality Officer Bob Pendleton describes a strategic challenge faced by many industries, including health care. We are at risk for prioritizing achievement of metrics over our purpose. He challenges us to think beyond metrics to what patients actually need from us: patient-centered, outcome-focused, affordable care.
Virtual care is the way of the future. How do clinicians trained in a face-to-face world transition their skills for a virtual care environment? Physician assistant Jonathan Chao shares three ways Urgent Care delivers expertise and compassion in a virtual world.
Preventing medication errors often means using checklists and leveraging technology. But implementing these seemingly simple tools requires interdisciplinary teamwork, learning, and a commitment to ongoing verification that the process is working. Clinical operations nursing director Joy Lombardi describes how Huntsman Cancer Institute made chemotherapy highly reliable.
Zac Watne returns to answer another variation of the all-too-familiar question: Why is health care so hard to understand? In this post, Zac unravels the bureaucratic and economic transactions that make up the whole health care enchilada.
