Quoteworthy
What I love as a leader is the direct interactions I get to have with my staff members. I’ve learned a lot working with people who are compassionate and kind. All of us want to do what’s right, valuing every single individual we encounter, whether they’re patients or co-workers.
Tracy Farley

Most Recent
A Blueprint to Build a Successful Career in Academic Medicine

We all make lots of mistakes early on in our careers. Hospitalist and mentorship expert Valerie Vaughn sets us up for success by sharing her expertise on how to take control of your long-term career path.

Are Leaders Still Readers?

Reading is an essential leadership skill. But with so many distractions—Netflix, social media—reading may be on the decline. James Neider, clinical operations manager, shares strategies for adopting a reading habit that will make you a better leader.

What It’s Really Like To Teach Something New Every Day

COVID-19 has brought a new challenge to the work of continuous learning in health care: how to teach new information when it is constantly changing and emotions run high. As nurse educators for the emergency department, the pulmonary and palliative care unit, and outpatient clinics, Emma Gauci, Paige Wilson, and Sarah Smith have been thrown into an educator’s quandary: how to help staff feel as knowledgeable and supported as possible.

The Best Advice I’ve Been Given

We asked seven members of the Accelerate editorial team to share the best professional advice they had ever received—practical or profound. And now we’re passing it on to you.

How to Serve Others and Still Lead

Alison Flynn Gaffney defines herself as a servant leader. As U of U Health’s Executive Director of Service Lines, Ancillary and Support Services, she brings more than two decades of experience in strategic, operations, and consulting roles at academic medical centers and community hospitals. Here are Alison’s expert tips for effective servant leadership.

Practicing (Episode 5): Cathy Gray and Cynthia McComber

Real teams are the antidote to the chaos of modern medicine. “Real teams know each other, feel loyalty to one another, trust one another, and would not want to disappoint one another” (Tom Lee, NEJM Catalyst 2016). Practicing are conversations between real team members about why the work matters. Our goal is to preserve and share the stories of the teams at University of Utah Health.

Digging In To The Outward Mindset

In the new series Book Club for Busy People, Accelerate shares highlights of books we’re hearing about from the community. First up: how thinking about others’ needs strengthens teams and increases civility in The Outward Mindset.

The Effective Communicator: How to Run a Meeting

The Effective Communicator returns this week to remedy the bane of our existences: endless, often pointless, meetings. Yes, you can run them better.

The Formula For Transforming Health Care

Ever had an idea everyone agrees with but still takes a year to implement? Nutrition Services Director Carissa Christensen faced a dilemma as she developed a weight management program for patients struggling with obesity: even after you’ve defined your vision, how do you engage an entire system in an ambitious improvement project?

The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Accelerate frequently chronicles the hard work of building and nurturing teams because we believe that real teams are the antidote to the chaos of modern medicine (in the words of Dr. Tom Lee). Here, we highlight a necessary ingredient of high-performing teams: motivation.

Top 5 "Whys" of 2016

We believe that improvement in healthcare needs more connection to what makes this hard work meaningful. That’s why we ask every person who contributes to Accelerate – how did you get into healthcare? There are easier jobs out there, so what keeps you here? Here are a few of our favorite answers.

The Bobcast with Dr. Brigitte Smith

In this podcast, Utah’s Chief Medical Quality Officer interviews Brigitte Smith. A vascular surgeon who joined the University of Utah in 2015, Dr. Smith has quickly become a thought leader in transforming training for future physicians in value (both medical school and residency programs). Their conversation pinpoints an inconvenient truth—we may be a generation away from a culture of value-driven healthcare.