Quoteworthy
it’s the human interaction—the relationships—that helps drive our organization to even greater heights.
Alison Flynn Gaffney

Most Recent
The Effective Communicator: Reclaim Your Weekend

The Effective Communicator spoke with Tom Miller, Utah’s Chief Medical Officer, about respectful communication in the workplace. His tips? Go slow, set boundaries, and pick up the phone. Bonus: why he uses Emojis in text messages.

Revenue Cycle: Culture Drives Success

Revenue Cycle Support Services is the backbone of Utah’s financial system – from insurance prior authorizations to processing billions of dollars in claims and payments. Their leadership team, led by administrative director Kathy Delis, has been on a years-long journey to make this work better both for patients and employees. Here, she shares how she brought meaning, purpose, and a sense of community to the team.

Book Club For Busy People: "Quiet" by Susan Cain

Kyle Bradford Jones returns with a review of “Quiet,” Susan Cain’s book about the power of introverted thinking. Although introversion is often viewed as a drawback — “a second-class personality trait,” Cain writes — Bradford Jones believes that reassessing his personality type has helped him better understand himself, his co-workers, and even his patients.

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 Wisdom of Leaders: How to Cultivate Teams

Leaders embody U of U Health’s focus on patient-centered care, respect for people, and continued improvement. Recently, Jessica Rivera, Carissa Christensen, Sue Childress, and Tracy Farley described their efforts to deliver a better health care experience for patients by taking care of their teams. In advance of individual articles from each leader, below are four big takeaways that can be put into action today.

Want To Transform Health Care? Work on a "Boring" Project

Claire Ciarkowski is on a journey to reduce unnecessary labs for inpatients at University of Utah Health. As a junior faculty member, she volunteered to work on the project when it didn’t sound exciting. But she is changing culture by asking the hard questions and delivering better care to patients at a lower cost. Accelerate’s Mari Ransco asked what she has learned.

The Effective Communicator: How to Craft a Story

The Effective Communicator is back to answer your troublesome communication questions. This week: how to craft a compelling story.

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.

Cynthia McComber’s Antidote to Uncertainty

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.