Improvement in patient experience is often the hardest part of managers’ jobs. It takes consistent work engaging your team. There are no shortcuts. In this occasional series, we’ll be sharing the lessons learned the hard way from people working on the front lines to deliver care. In this post, Urology and Pelvic Care outpatient services manager Leslie Bardsley gives practical advice for involving your entire team in improvement.

Is zero possible? In the case of central line infections, the answer was once no. A CLABSI (central line associated blood stream infection) was once considered a car crash, or an expected inevitability of care. When University of Utah’s Burn Trauma Intensive Care Unit started treating CLABSIs like a plane crash, or a tragedy demanding in-depth investigation and cultural change, zero became possible.

Sterile Processing runs a lean operation, delivering millions of instruments to University of Utah Health’s procedural teams. Director of value engineering Steve Johnson, assisted by the video wizardry of Charlie Ehlert, sheds light on our system’s unseen infection prevention heroes.

The dojo welcomes guest author and senior value engineer Will McNett with a deep dive into clinic capacity utilization. McNett borrows from manufacturing to offer a framework to measure and increase what really matters to patients: time spent with their provider.

We asked Zac Watne, Utah’s payment innovation manager (he gets paid to understand the volatile world of payment reform) to give us a primer on “bundles.” Regardless of change happening in health care, thought leaders predict that payment reform, and specifically bundled payments, are here to stay. Why? Bundles deliver care with improved outcomes at a lower price all over the United States. In this post, Zac predicts the future of bundles.

Process mapping is easy. But also hard. This is a common conundrum with value improvement. Here's part 1 of 4, wherein rules are distinguished from guidance.

The joint replacement team—Drs. Pelt, Gililland, Peters, PA Jill Erickson, and clinic manager Piper Ferrell—explain why going home after a joint replacement is better than going to a post-acute care facility. Their data shows that going home means better value for the patient: a healthier recovery at a lower cost.

We asked Zac Watne, Utah’s payment innovation manager (he gets paid to understand the volatile world of payment reform) to give us a primer on “bundles.” Regardless of change happening in healthcare, thought leaders predict that payment reform, and specifically bundled payments, are here to stay. Why? Bundles deliver care with improved outcomes at a lower price all over the United States. In this post, Zac outlines the difference between retrospective and prospective payment.

Value Improvement Leaders (VIL) is a 13 week leadership course offered at University of Utah Health that teaches the skills needed to provide sponsorship and leadership for value improvement work. Principles taught are taken from Lean, Six Sigma, and PDSA methodologies. The course explains theory, provides healthcare examples of many specific leadership techniques, and uses an applied learning model. Not everyone can take the course, but everyone can follow along with the lesson plan.

We asked Zac Watne, Utah’s payment innovation manager (he gets paid to understand the volatile world of payment reform) to give us a primer on “bundles.” Regardless of change happening in health care, thought leaders predict that payment reform, and specifically, bundled payments, are here to stay. Why? Bundles deliver care with improved outcomes at a lower price all over the United States. In this post, Zac addresses how long it takes to get paid.

Improving value in health care means tackling long-standing problems. These problems have seemingly simple solutions, but just won’t stay fixed. Fixing the old problems of health care requires new problem solving skills. Nurse manager Jamie D’Ausilio used University of Utah Health’s value improvement methodology to confront one of the most common management challenges—unnecessary overtime. Using concepts from lean and six sigma, D’Ausilio identified waste, prioritized root causes, and engaged her team to design interventions to create new workflow design.

The Value Summary is the currency of value improvement work at University of Utah Health. It creates a common improvement language through a one-page summary document. It visually guides the improver through our standardized improvement methodology while teaching improvement science principles in real time. The online Value Summary portal creates a forum to share and spread ideas and a path to earn maintenance of certification credit.