Excerpt: I don’t need external measures of performance, what I do need is to look back and say that we made a more viable future for my colleagues and my own kids if they choose a career in healthcare. And that medicine continues to be the best profession that it can be.
#2 Robin Kim:
"Why I do one of the Riskiest Surgeries in Medicine"
Excerpt: As you’d imagine, there are few situations in which people feel more helpless than waiting for an organ needed to survive. The worry, heartache, and stress often extend to family members whose lives are put on hold or devastated by a loved one’s illness. For many, the favorable odds of success and the feelings of immense satisfaction that come with saving someone’s life outweigh the potential risks of living-donor liver transplantation. We started our program in Utah so that more families have the opportunity to make this difficult decision for themselves and to help them take back a measure of control in circumstances in which, for a long time, they have felt powerless.
#3 Ryan VanderWerff:
"I want patients to not have to be experts in the system"
Excerpt: So, just a personal anecdote. My mother was an orthopedic patient. She was in a car accident when I was in elementary school. Her leg went through the windshield and the car rolled. The windshield cut everything down to the bone and she lost her anterior tendons so she could no longer lift her foot up.
#4 Bob Pendleton:
"For me, tying it back to the patient makes it easier"
Excerpt: In 2012, Bob Pendleton became the University of Utah’s first Chief Medical Quality Officer. Pendleton believed that above all else, the organization needed to believe that quality metrics mattered. Instead of looking at the external pressure negatively, he found that quality metrics resonated with his personal vision of medicine. “For me, tying it back to the patient makes it easier…We are always saying transformation in healthcare is SO HARD. We should be saying that it is SO EASY. There is not a better true north than making it possible for someone to live a better life with better health.”
#5 Sylvia Burwell:
In "The Weeds" with Sylvia Burwell
Excerpt: We are trying to shift the entire system to focus on Smarter, Better, Healthier - to get to a place where the consumer is at the center of their care. In order to do that, there are three main things we need to do.
Accelerate Editorial Team
Every summer, senior value engineer Cindy Spangler stocks our offices with an abundance of tomatoes, zucchini, and squash. We asked her to share how improvement thinking influences her gardening. Turns out, there are parallels–learn from others, stick to your scope, and learn from the mistakes.
It’s been quite a year—but we made it! The Accelerate Team is celebrating the small wins with some big engagement from across the globe. Thank you to all 158 contributors who shared valuable insights with the U of U Health community in 2021.
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.
