Quoteworthy
High-trust leaders ask for help instead of just telling people what to do. Asking for help is a sign of a secure leader—one who engages everyone to reach a goal. Asking for help taps into people’s natural impulse to cooperate..
Chrissy Daniels

Most Recent
How Clinician Educators Can Give Effective Feedback

Feedback is often an area that breaks down under the rigors and pressure of clinical activity. Clinician educators Pete Hannon and Kathleen Timme introduce a methodology that can provide insight, inspire goal setting, and help improve clinical performance.

One-Minute Preceptor

Finding the time to teach in busy clinical environments can be challenging. Clinician educators Kathleen Timme and Pete Hannon outline a process for precepting in five minutes or less.

The Elephant, The Rider, and the Path to Change in Health Care

Drawing from psychologist Jonathan Haidt’s Elephant and the Rider metaphor, Utah's Chief Medical Quality Officer Bob Pendleton explains why emotions are critical to motivating change in health care. Behavioral economics, it appears, may provide the direction we need.

Invest In Your Team: Listening and Storytelling

University of Utah Health was an early adopter of bundled payments. Accelerate’s Mari Ransco sat down with Ryan VanderWerff, one of the first in our health system to participate in payment innovation, to learn firsthand what it takes to lead a team in turbulent times.

Why Rounding Demonstrates Respect for Patients and Teams

Rounding–the act of connecting with patients and staff–is a leadership best practice. While few find rounding easy to start, those who master it are hooked. It is a daily habit that improves patient care, experience and engages the team. Susan Clark and her medical director, Dr. Dana DeWitt, have taken the practice one step further by rounding together as a leadership dyad, resulting in a more connected and authentic team.

Is It Better To Have An MVP or A MVT (most valuable team)?

Dr. Kyle Bradford Jones is back, this time with baseball analogies. Team success means having a team of contributors instead of one MVP. Jones writes that specific factors—positivity and team identity—are critical to nurturing a successful team.

Teamwork Must-have: Compelling Vision

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: compelling vision.

The Wisdom of Crowds: Effective Feedback

Want to be part of a thriving culture? Feedback is key. Director of ENT and dental clinics Kirk Hughs asked over 500 University of Utah Health leaders to share what makes feedback effective. Their top two? Timely and sincere feedback.

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.

What Every Generation Needs

Sarah Sherer is the Director of Employee Relations. We know her as the sounding board, place of last resort and coach for leaders throughout the organization. We asked her to share her wisdom on engaging employees of different ages. What she said might surprise you.

PRACTICING: Drs. Graves and Horton (Episode 1)

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 Healthcare.