Quoteworthy
For me, tying it back to the patient makes it easier…We are always saying transformation in healthcare is SO HARD. We should be saying that it is SO EASY. There is not a better true north than making it possible for someone to live a better life with better health.
Bob Pendleton

Most Recent
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.

Zero Suicide - How Do We Get There?

The Zero Suicide initiative has been shown to significantly reduce suicides—and working toward zero suicides is our mission. Rachael Jasperson, Zero Suicide program manager, shares the framework for how we strive for this aspirational goal.

Moving from Reactive to Proactive: Safety 2.0

Safety as a value requires a cultural shift, not just getting people to talk about patient safety but to know how it impacts everything we do. U of U Health’s Director of Patient Safety Iona Thraen draws from the personal to highlight a system-based approach for moving from reactive to proactive patient safety.

Seven Principles of Value Management at University of Utah Health

What is “Value Management” and why should you care? It's how University of Utah Health systematically improves the quality of care delivered to patients—and its never been more important as we redesign care during a pandemic. Chief Quality Officer Sandi Gulbransen shares the seven tenets of Value Management that guide our work.

Let the Process Map Be Your Guide

Process maps are a useful tool for focusing your efforts and saving valuable time. Senior Value Engineer Luca Boi explains how this team-based tool harnesses the power of visual thinking to help clarify complex processes.

Pebble in Who’s Shoe? PegPad Patient-driven Design

Value culture encourages us to look for and resolve our day-to-day problems and inefficiencies by asking, “What’s the pebble in my shoe?” But what happens when the pebble is in the patient’s shoe? Recent biomedical engineering grad Kyler Hodgson, operations manager Sarah Burton, and gastroenterology chief John Fang share how listening to patients can result in solutions that meet patient needs.

Event Reporting

Many people ask, “What am I supposed to report?” or “Does this count?” Hospitalist Ryan Murphy explains the basic vocabulary of patient safety event reporting, informing the way we recognize harm and identify and report threats to safety.

Culture of Safety

The practice of medicine is recognized as a high-risk, error-prone environment. Anesthesiologist Candice Morrissey and internist and hospitalist Peter Yarbrough help us understand the importance of building a supportive, no-blame culture of safety.

How ARUP Makes it Safe for Teams to Thrive in Complexity

Why do some organizations thrive during a crisis while others flounder? Iona Thraen, director of patient safety, joined forces with her ARUP Laboratory colleagues to learn how the world-renowned national reference lab adapted to the pandemic. Leaders created a culture of safety by putting innovation, learning, and patient-centered care at the heart of all their efforts.

Adapting and Improving Through Adversity

Almost one year ago the novel coronavirus turned longstanding educational approaches on their heads. Savvy educators responded to the challenge. Learn how U of U Health Medical School faculty pivoted to online learning in just three days, improving long-term education decision-making along the way.

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.

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.