Quoteworthy
I’m trying to be an inspiration and lead them not with carrot or stick but with teaching some sort of intrinsic reason why they should care.
Brigitte Smith

Most Recent
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 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.

More Than "Some Other Race": Improving Race and Ethnicity Data Quality to Advance Health Equity

Accurate, self-reported race and ethnicity data is necessary to create visibility of health disparities, provide inclusive care, and improve equity of health outcomes. Community engagement director RyLee Curtis, Chief Quality Officer Sandi Gulbransen, Project Manager Kimberly Killam, Patient Experience Director Mari Ransco, Chief Medical Informatics Officer Michael Strong, and Health Sciences Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Librarian Donna Baluchi explain how University of Utah is improving data quality.

What is DNV? And Other Burning Accreditation Questions

Chief Quality Officer Sandi Gulbransen and Accreditation Manager Kemper Funk provide insight on our partnership with DNV, how accreditation contributes to the safety of our patients and staff, and what to expect during our upcoming evaluation.

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.

Quality Improvement

Hospitalist Ryan Murphy introduces quality improvement (QI): The systematic and continuous approach to improvement.

How to Prepare for Patient Design Studio and Advise Utah

Patient Experience Program Coordinator Corrie Harris and Project Administrator Emily Izzo explain how to get valuable patient feedback early in your improvement efforts by meeting with the U of U Health Patient Design Studio and Advise Utah.

Building Our Digital Literacy

How are we building digital literacy? Chief Information Officer Donna Roach and Sr. Director of Patient Experience Mari Ransco share how using design thinking and seeing care through the eyes of our patients is a great place to start.

High Reliability Camping

Every summer, Utahns head to the mountains for camping, biking, rafting and other activities. And every summer, many a family is left without a stove, or a helmet, or a…because it was left at home. Thrill-seeker and value engineer Cindy Spangler wants to prevent your next packing mishap with a customized camping checklist.