Quoteworthy
As clinician-educators, we are tasked with teaching our patients, trainees, peers, and the community. It is our professional responsibility to contribute to the growth of others by being sensitive to their needs and fostering an environment that is conducive to learning.
Kathleen Timme

Most Recent
How To Plan a SMART Thanksgiving

Large gatherings are out for the holidays this year. Thankfully, Senior Value Engineer and Thanksgiving enthusiast Cindy Spangler is prepared. She’s drawing from her improvement toolbox to rethink both what and how to celebrate safely this year.

Find the Root of the Problem to Achieve Long Term Solutions

Anesthesiology techs are essential to the care team, but they are challenged by high turnover. Anesthesia resident Michael Van Tienderen, who was a tech for seven years before going to medical school, worked with fellow resident Matt O’Neal, anesthesiologist Emily Drennan, and senior value engineer Cindy Spangler to develop a lasting solution focused on culture change and career growth for these crucial care team members.

SPIKES: A Strategy for Delivering Bad News

No one likes to be the bearer of bad news—but in health care, it’s part of the job. Fortunately, there’s a simple framework to help us get through it. Hospitalist and UACT co-director Claire Ciarkowski introduces SPIKES: a simple mnemonic for delivering bad news.

Draw on a Wide Range of Evidence to Jump Start Your Improvement Project

Finding evidence to change the status quo isn’t easy; thinking about evidence in terms of how it persuades—whether subjective or objective—can make it easier. Plastic surgery resident Dino Maglić and his colleagues followed their guts and saved money by improving the laceration trays used to treat patients in the emergency department.

Designing a Virtual Clinic Workflow that Actually Works for Your Team

Chronic conditions do not pause during a pandemic. When faced with delaying the care of over 1,000 patients with neurological conditions, Susan Baggaley, Neurology Vice Chair and Ambulatory Chief Value Officer, and Vivek Reddy, Neurology Vice Chair and Inpatient Chief Value Officer, rapidly developed a new virtual visit workflow.

Vision, Guardrails and Empowerment: Working in a Team of Teams Culture

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.

The Culture Advantage: How EVS Transformed Room Turn Time

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.

Three Challenges for the Next Decade of Health Care

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.

Don’t Let Metrics Undermine Your Purpose

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.

Value Week 2019: Daily Updates

Value Week is a unique collaborative event that brings together U of U Health’s improvement community to recognize the important and impactful work conducted throughout our organization.

How a Hospitalist Duo and a 1000-person Multidisciplinary Team Changed Practice

Changing practice is personal. It doesn’t happen through edict or mandate. Changing practice requires ongoing respectful dialogue. It requires clear vision, data-driven analysis and the support of a dedicated team. Changing practice takes longer that you think it will. In this example, we recognize the power of a partnership in this challenging and important work.

How the Cardiovascular Center is Implementing Patient Reported Outcomes

mEVAL is the system U of U Health uses to collect patient-reported outcomes (PROs). Of course, it’s what we do with the data that matters. mEVAL analytics team lead Josh Biber and cardiologist Josef Stehlik share how measuring PROs in the Cardiovascular Center is changing the ways clinicians treat and care for patients.