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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Practicing are recorded conversations with a colleague that are shared with the organization. They are conversations between real team members about why the work matters.
