Quoteworthy
We all start somewhere. Someone gave you an opportunity. Delegating responsibility is a way to pay that forward, to give others an opportunity to grow.
Allyson Tanner

Most Recent
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.

A New Kind of Great Save: Value Improvement Leadership

We all love the “great save” stories. But heroism in the context of health care improvement isn’t always so exciting. When you’re pursuing more reliable, more patient-centered, and more affordable health care, providers have to rely on a different kind of gratification.

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.

Eight Behaviors to Cultivate Trust

Employees in high-trust organizations are happier, more collaborative and stay at their jobs longer. But what builds long-term, sustaining trust? Director of strategic initiatives Chrissy Daniels highlights findings from an article in Harvard Business Review. The answer: Eight behaviors.

Building a Real Team With Trust

According to Melissa Horn, changing a culture takes three years. She would know. Melissa has had the unusual leadership challenge of being “the fixer” for four different clinics at University of Utah Health as director of outpatient women’s clinics. Accelerate learned how Melissa creates authentic teams (hint: it’s hard work and there are no shortcuts).

The Bobcast with Dr. Mark Eliason

Chief Medical Quality Officer interviews Dr. Mark Eliason, Department of Dermatology’s chief value officer. Dr. Eliason talks about what he has learned about engaging the entire team in improvement and how he is trying to make the clinical lives of dermatologists a bit easier.

How Utah Builds Trust With Patient Experience

Trust. That’s what we want. We want to earn and keep the trust of every patient. We want them to trust that we provide the best possible medical care. But more than that, we want them to trust that we will respond to their needs, coordinate our efforts, and provide them with available options. We want them to trust that we will answer our phones, explain their treatment, and value their time. The exceptional patient experience is an enterprise-wide system designed to deliver a singular output: trust. And, this enterprise-wide system is built on trusting our providers and our teams.

Utah's Resident Expert Hailey Bandy Explains "Repeal and Replace"

The process to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is confusing to say the least. That’s why we're lucky to have Hailey Bandy as an interpreter. As Associate General Counsel, she watches health care policy and analyzes its impact on U of U Health. Medical Group contributor Isaac Holyoak interviewed Bandy about the big changes afoot.

What I'm Reading: What Health Care Can Learn from Google

Chief Pharmacy Officer Linda Tyler thinks broadly about the leadership skills needed to deliver reliably safe care. Here, she shares an article about the importance of psychological safety—the #1 success factor identified by Google’s Project Aristotle, which studied hundreds of Google’s teams to figure out why some stumbled and some soared.

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.

5 Lessons Healthcare Can Learn From Other Industries

In addition to his day job as Director of ENT Clinics, Kirk Hughs orients all new specialty clinic and endoscopy employees to the Exceptional Patient Experience. His goal is to engage new team members about how they can create exceptional experiences for their patients.

How Utah Chief Value Officers Lead Health Care Transformation

Not even the most gifted leader can lead change alone. No one person can come up with the strategy, communicate across the organization, eliminate all the barriers, and manage dozens of change initiatives. In order for transformation to succeed, you need a guiding coalition.