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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Feedback is a gift—even when it doesn’t feel like it. Senior Director of Care Navigation Stacy Silwany teams up with Organizational Development’s Michael Danielson to share how Care Navigation uses WellCheck survey data to learn from and engage employees in making the workplace better.

For National Injury Prevention Day, Spencer Steinbach, Senior Nursing Director, discusses safety and injury prevention in nursing and the outdoors and shares tips for your next adventure.

One of health care’s biggest ideas is predictive analytics — looking at large amounts of data to predict future patient behavior or outcomes. Jeff Young, Associate Director in Decision Support, worked with a multi-disciplinary team to put predictive analytics into action. Here, he shares why innovation is nothing without the team.

Problems. We all have them. Whether it’s a check engine light or an adverse patient safety event, we first need to discover what’s causing the problem before trying out solutions. Senior Value Engineer Luca Boi and a team of Oncology residents get to the root cause using a fishbone diagram.

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.