Quoteworthy
When there have been opportunities to share ideas, people are hungry for it. They love to teach and to learn from each other. They build relationships with each other that end up producing solutions that meet patient needs.
Chrissy Daniels, Mari Ransco, Brittany Patterson

Most Recent
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.

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.

Stop Waiting and Start Working: Four Tips from the Help Desk

We all do it. We draw a blank on our password, get locked out of login, “…duo what?” and so on. And then we wait for a University of Utah Health service desk saint who makes our machine work again. To help lighten their load a bit—and make our lives easier—we asked ITS Manager Mike Madsen for his “Top 4” preventive measures to avoid a call.

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.

What Improvement Taught Me About Gardening

Every summer, senior value engineer Cindy Spangler stocks our offices with an abundance of tomatoes, zucchini, and squash. We asked her to share how improvement thinking influences her gardening. Turns out, there are parallels–learn from others, stick to your scope, and learn from the mistakes.

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.

Coping with Medical Error: Secondary Trauma

When a medical error occurs, the patient is not the only person affected. Pediatric intensivist Brian Flaherty and psychologist Megan Call describe how caregivers can be impacted by medical error and provide strategies to cope.

How to Solve Complex Problems

From the simple to the complex, problems plague our daily work. Quality Improvement experts Luca Boi and Ryan Murphy provide brief lessons and resources covering important problem solving techniques so you can develop solutions and make improvements.