Quoteworthy
A positive learning environment creates a psychologically safe space where learners feel comfortable asking questions and can therefore gain the knowledge and skills crucial to becoming a health care provider.
Kathleen Timme

Most Recent
Hysterectomy Surgical Site Infection (SSI) Bundle Implementation​

Urogynecology specialist Whitney Hendrickson-Cahill details the steps an interdisciplinary team followed to reduce surgical site infections (SSIs) following hysterectomy procedures, aiming to improve patient outcomes, shorten recovery times, and reduce healthcare costs at University of Utah Health.

Elevating Our Teams with Shared Governance and Value Culture

Magnet program director Gigi Austria and quality manager Dane Falkner explain how problem-solving structures like Shared Governance and Value Culture complement each other. When practiced together, these approaches can be a recipe for optimal outcomes.

What is ISO-9001 and How Does it Impact Our Everyday Work?

Chief Quality Officer Sandi Gulbransen and Accreditation Manager Kemper Funk explain how this umbrella of standards—ISO-9001—relates to our accreditation process and impacts our daily work.

5 Ways You Can Contribute to the UUHC Operational Plan

In an organization as big as U of U Health, it’s hard to know where our work fits into the big picture. System Planning Manager Cassandra Taft highlights five ways teams can meaningfully contribute to Operational Plan priorities, regardless of job role or responsibility.

Ask These Four Questions Before Starting Any Improvement

Hospitalist Ryan Murphy and Value Engineer Luca Boi outline four questions to address at the outset of any improvement.

Standard Work

Standard work is the most efficient way to accomplish a job quickly and accurately supported by visual guides. VA internist Sarah Hall and nurse practitioner Jamie Clinton-Lont team up with senior value engineer Luca Boi to share how they used standard work to make pain management safer for veterans.

How to Turn a Gut Feeling into a QI Project

Your gut tells you a process could be better than it is—how do you back that feeling up with hard data? Senior value engineer Luca Boi shows how undertaking a baseline analysis can jumpstart your improvement project.

The Innovation of Integrated Care

Intensive Outpatient Clinic Physician Stacey Bank, Social Worker Christina Cackler, and Executive Medical Director of Population Health Peter Weir share what it took to build an integrated practice and why it pays to innovate for patient-centered care.

Dissecting Utilization Review

Utilization Review is a necessary, but oftentimes messy process that ensures patients are receiving the most appropriate care in the most appropriate setting. Jenny Tuan, hospitalist and medical director of Utilization Review, dissects what UR is all about, including confusing gray areas and sticky pain points.

Moving from Reactive to Proactive: Safety 2.0

Safety as a value requires a cultural shift, not just getting people to talk about patient safety but to know how it impacts everything we do. U of U Health’s Director of Patient Safety Iona Thraen draws from the personal to highlight a system-based approach for moving from reactive to proactive patient safety.

Seven Principles of Value Management at University of Utah Health

What is “Value Management” and why should you care? It's how University of Utah Health systematically improves the quality of care delivered to patients—and its never been more important as we redesign care during a pandemic. Chief Quality Officer Sandi Gulbransen shares the seven tenets of Value Management that guide our work.

Pebble in Who’s Shoe? PegPad Patient-driven Design

Value culture encourages us to look for and resolve our day-to-day problems and inefficiencies by asking, “What’s the pebble in my shoe?” But what happens when the pebble is in the patient’s shoe? Recent biomedical engineering grad Kyler Hodgson, operations manager Sarah Burton, and gastroenterology chief John Fang share how listening to patients can result in solutions that meet patient needs.