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.
The pace of technological progress can make it seem like solutions to our health care problems are only a click away. Howard Weeks, Utah’s interim chief medical information officer, lauds the virtues of technology with this caveat: you can’t IT your way out of every problem.
For years, nurse manager Emily Baarz has mentored millennial nurses joining Neuro Critical Care (NCC). But new nurse graduates weren’t always prepared for the high-acuity setting. So Emily created the Axon/Dendrite program, a mentor-leader model to support her staff’s professional growth.
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.
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.
What if a patient described their care team as “incredibly competent, experienced and collaborative”*? Those are the adjectives used by a patient to describe their surgery at South Jordan Health Center. As the nurse manager of South Jordan’s surgical services, Brent Klev works to ensure that every patient has that experience. Here, Klev shares three ways he fosters a culture of teamwork through shared purpose.
We begin every Accelerate interview by asking about a person’s intrinsic motivation to work in health care, lead a team, or make a change. In other words, we always start with “why.”
For the past 20 years, Chrissy Daniels and Dan Lundergan have been hard at work – building culture, building space, building experiences and building trust. Practicing interviews are conversations between partners about why the work matters. Our goal is to preserve and share the stories of the teams at University of Utah Health.
Positive beliefs build energy, caring and creativity and can increase resilience and influence bottom line results.* As senior director of endoscopy, medical and specialty clinics, Cynthia McComber believes that meaning is necessary for leading change. McComber talked with Accelerate’s Chrissy Daniels about how to build connected, authentic and resilient teams.
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.
