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.
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.
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.
Problems—we all have them. From the simple to the complex, they plague our daily work. Quality Improvement experts Luca Boi and Carolyn Brayko provide brief lessons and simple exercises on problem solving techniques so you can develop solutions and make improvements.
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.
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.
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.
Sharing what you learned from your improvement project is the final step in the evidence-based practice (EBP) process.
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.
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.
