Visual cues in the workflow reduce cognitive load and help process stakeholders make the right decision. Steve Johnson interviews Dan Vargo in this Lean Behind the Scenes exclusive.

When health care is designed around patient needs, it doesn't just benefit the patient — it can also help providers find fulfillment in their work. But what does that look like in practice? Physician Joy English opened the Orthopaedic Injury Clinic, an innovative service that delivers better value to patients. Her success is a case study in how to achieve both provider and patient happiness.

Matt Rim, Manager of Ambulatory Pharmacy at Midvalley’s PAC3 (Pharmacy Ambulatory Clinical Care Center), put predictive analytics to work with the help of many. Here, he shares his team's work to reduce readmissions.

Medical errors often occur due to system failure, not human failure. Hospitalist Kencee Graves helps explain why we need to evaluate medical error from a system standpoint.

Depression is one of those problems so big and so pervasive that tackling it seems impossible. That's why process improvement is so powerful: by setting one goal—improving depression screening rates—11 U of U Health Community Clinics are making the impossible manageable.

Sterile Processing runs a lean operation, and this video produced by value engineer Steve Johnson and video wizard Charlie Ehlert won a national 2018 Telly Award for shedding light on our system’s unseen infection prevention heroes.

Improvement work isn’t easy, especially when it attempts to address rising health care costs. Solid organ transplant coordinator Sharon Ugolini and her team led award-winning work implementing new protocols for common tests. That led to more than just reduced patient charges, though — ordering appropriate tests increases value and quality, as well.

University of Utah Health’s success is driven by teams doing the right work for our patients — and sharing that work across the system. Chief Medical Quality Officer Bob Pendleton reflects on the universal importance of continuous improvement while looking at health care through the eyes of a patient.

A core improvement principle states that the expert is the person doing the work. Utah’s system-wide effort to reduce sepsis puts this principle into action. To adapt to the fast-paced nature of the Emergency Department, an interdisciplinary team used a simple tool: a paper checklist. Clinical nurse coordinator Jamie Troyer and nurse educator Emilie Johnson share how and why the checklist works.

Including patients in treatment planning improves their experience, and patient reported outcomes (PROs) offer new ways to do just that — talking with patients about how treatment impacts their daily life. Clinical Nurse Coordinator Lisa McMurtrey shares the Burn Clinic team’s award-winning work implementing PROs during patient visits without disrupting flow.

Biometric identification is a national best practice — but adapting that to a local environment isn’t easy. Although it’s rare, confusing an identity can have scary consequences (like getting a prescription for a drug you’re allergic to.) So Doug Ostler and his team worked to implement palm scanners and make patients feel safer.

When Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JP Morgan Chase & Co. announced their plans to partner up and tackle “the ballooning costs of health care,” our industry underwent a collective shudder. Thankfully, Utah’s payment innovation manager Zac Watne is back to help us unravel the complexity.