Explore every episode of the podcast Better Never Stops - The Virginia Mason Institute Podcast
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leeds Teaching Hospital - Using CI to solve a budget crisis | 22 Nov 2024 | 00:49:03 | |
Earlier this year Leeds Teaching Hospital managed to save £16M ($20M USD) in the space of 2 weeks. Featured in this episode: Chapters 01:34 Wendy Korthuis-Smith, Virginia Mason Institute 04:23 Phil Wood, CE of Leeds NHS 07:26 Command & Control vs. Continuous Improvement 13:04 Jimmy Parvin on how they did it 20:22 CI in large organizations 32:47 Trusting your team 40:20 Scalability 45:53 Final thoughts | |||
| 4. Systematizing Equity at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health | 26 May 2023 | 00:49:56 | |
Advancing diversity, equity and inclusion in healthcare has become a strategic imperative for all leaders in healthcare. But to make lasting progress, we can’t just treat the symptoms; we must address the underlying condition, which is systemic inequity. Learn how leaders at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health have embedded equity into their improvement methods, training, and tools. | |||
| Webinar | Increasing Access and Throughput with a Unified Improvement Approach | 17 Nov 2021 | 01:01:31 | |
[US Broadcast] Challenges with access and capacity are leading to increasingly long wait times for patients and exhaustion and overwhelm for our teams. With workforce resources already stretched, running harder and faster will not work. We need better ways to improve our work to reduce the burden of work and begin making immediate and sustainable improvements to reduce wait times and increase access for patients. Practical insights in this webinar will help you understand how to address access, capacity and backlogs with a unified improvement approach. | |||
| UK Webinar | Addressing the Backlogs Crisis: Increasing Access and Throughput with a Unified Improvement Approach | 17 Nov 2021 | 00:59:21 | |
[UK Broadcast] Challenges with access and capacity are leading to increasingly long wait times for patients and exhaustion and overwhelm for our teams. With workforce resources already stretched, running harder and faster will not work. We need better ways to improve our work to reduce the burden of work and begin making immediate and sustainable improvements to reduce wait times and increase access for patients. Practical insights in this webinar will help you understand how to address access, capacity and backlogs with a unified improvement approach. | |||
| Webinar | Improving Patient Safety & Care Quality Through Cultural Transformation | 01 Mar 2021 | 00:40:37 | |
University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center went from “good to great” by ditching standalone improvement projects and spearheading an entire cultural transformation. They implemented a proven management system they call their St. Joseph Value Delivery System. In this webinar we explain the challenges and successes experienced by the executives who have led this transformation. | |||
| Webinar | Moving Forward Through Transition – Lessons to Stay Nimble in 2021 | 20 Oct 2020 | 00:59:09 | |
Learn about leveraging an improvement system to manage ongoing transitions due to COVID-19 with our panel of experts discussing key learnings from the crisis. Our panel includes Executive Sensei Val Ferris, Senior Transformation Sensei Robbi Bishop, and Transformation Sensei Melissa Lin. They are interviewed by our Senior Transformation Sensei Chris Backous. | |||
| Webinar | Leadership Through Crisis Interview Series – Sue Anderson and Eli Quisenberry | 24 Jul 2020 | 00:58:16 | |
A live interview webinar with audience Q&A – the second in our “Leadership Through Crisis Interview Series” featuring Virginia Mason President, Sue Anderson, along with Eli Quisenberry, director of Virginia Mason’s Kaizen Promotion Office. They are interviewed by our Senior Transformation Sensei Chris Backous. Learn about the important role leaders play in empowering improvement teams. | |||
| Webinar | Leadership Through Crisis Interview Series – Gary Kaplan and Chris Backous | 30 Jun 2020 | 00:57:41 | |
The first webinar in our “Leadership Through Crisis Interview Series” featuring Virginia Mason CEO, Gary Kaplan, interviewed by our Senior Transformation Sensei Chris Backous. Learn about Gary’s perspective on responding to the COVID-19 crisis including:
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| 3. Evolving Daily Management with Neha Patel | 07 Feb 2023 | 00:35:30 | |
Leading with Daily Management is an important and foundational component of ensuring patients receive quality, timely care, while providing frontline staff the information they need to effectively manage their work. Our latest episode of Better Never Stops features Neha Patel, Senior Director in Ambulatory Care at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health and Clinical Assistant Professor at University of Washington, as she shares how her teams have evolved Daily Management practices to better connect front-line leaders to executives. | |||
| Webinar | Executive Roundtable: Lessons from the NHS-VMI Partnership Evaluation | 16 Dec 2022 | 01:01:10 | |
Developing a culture of continuous improvement is an imperative as healthcare organizations face unprecedented challenges and strive for sustainability. Join our executive leadership panel for this roundtable discussion and learn about crucial lessons from Warwick Business School's recently published independent study of the NHS-VMI partnership. The research reveals the effectiveness of applying a systems approach to learning and improvement across five NHS trusts in partnership with NHS Improvement. Our roundtable explores crucial lessons for leaders as they work to improve patient outcomes, population health, access, equity, and the overall patient experience. Topics include: • Leadership models, behaviors and practices that were observed to be essential components of leading change in organizations | |||
| 2. Lessons from SuperVax with Dana Nelson-Peterson | 15 Nov 2022 | 00:56:14 | |
In our second episode of Better Never Stops, Virginia Mason Institute Senior Partner Melissa Lin interviews Dana Nelson-Peterson, Vice President of Nursing Operations at Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, who shares what happens when you trust a management system and improvement process to solve your toughest challenges. Dana shares her story of leading a critical part of Virginia Mason’s Covid response. | |||
| 1. Scaling and Spreading a Management System with Chris Stewart and Jackie Hartke | 27 Sep 2022 | 00:47:41 | |
Chris Backous, Executive Partner of Transformation Services, interviews two of Virginia Mason Franciscan Health’s improvement experts, Chris Stewart and Jackie Hartke, as they share their experiences overcoming the challenge of supporting the spread of our management method across a newly expanded health system. | |||
| Webinar | Embedding Equity in Continuous Improvement Systems and Leadership | 24 May 2022 | 00:57:17 | |
In this session we explore what it means to take a systems approach to healthcare equity by purposefully embedding equity concepts in improvement methods, training, and tools. We discuss practical ways to focus improvement work on the experiences of historically marginalized and underrepresented communities to support safe, culturally responsive care. We also discuss and share tools that others can immediately adopt and apply to their own work. | |||
| Webinar | Fundamentals for Improving Flow in the Ambulatory Setting | 12 Apr 2022 | 00:56:43 | |
Improving flow in the ambulatory setting can help you tackle backlogs and increase patient access, all while improving the staff and patient experience. Learn the fundamentals of improving flow including foundational principles, methods, and routines that can help you optimize the clinical environment with simple team-led improvements. | |||
| Webinar | The Role of Leadership in Addressing Burnout on the Frontline: A Systems Approach | 03 Apr 2022 | 00:55:15 | |
Workforce burnout on the frontline is an urgent challenge that leaders must understand and directly address. It is imperative leaders understand the root cause, impact and opportunities to address workforce fatigue and burnout. Learn about the crucial role leaders have in creating a culture of respect and continuous improvement that engages team members and the strategies you can immediately implement to promote workforce well-being and resilience. | |||
| Webinar | Developing Modern Leaders for a New Era in Healthcare | 02 Feb 2022 | 00:58:06 | |
This is an audio recording of our webinar originally broadcast January 27, 2022. Today’s healthcare leaders face immense challenges that require a modern mindset, skills and capabilities to address growing backlogs, financial pressures, workforce disengagement and turnover. It’s time we shift our paradigm on leadership into a new perspective focused on purpose and capability, including improvement skills, effective dyad leadership and behaviors that promote meaningful team engagement. | |||
| LEIPA - the Leadership Emotional Intelligence Performance Accelerator | 21 Feb 2025 | 00:35:11 | |
Host Brenda McLeod is joined by three guests to talk about one of Virginia Mason Institute’s newest service offerings, the Leadership Emotional Intelligence Performance Accelerator, or LEIPA. Chapters 0:00 Intro with Brenda McLeod 01:44 Wendy Korthuis-Smith, Virginia Mason Institute: Why LEIPA? 04:32 What is LEIPA with Greg Young 10:16 The Team LEIPA experience with Adam Sewell-Jones 19:02 Getting the most out of the LEIPA experience Featured in this episode:
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| Engaging the Board | 17 Jun 2025 | 00:47:30 | |
Host Brenda McLeod is joined by VMI Executive Director Wendy Korthuis-Smith and three guests to talk about engaging boards in process improvement. Featured in this episode:
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| Engaging Physicians | 21 May 2025 | 00:49:01 | |
Host Chris Backous is joined by three guests to talk about engaging doctors in process improvement. Featured in this episode:
Mentioned in the episode: | |||
| Building connections in the operating theatre - with hats! | 18 Feb 2026 | 00:42:34 | |
In our first-ever video episode, host Chris Backous chats with Liz Fitzhugh and Danielle Checketts about how reusable surgical hats are saving the environment and building relationships in the operating theatre and beyond. Featured in this episode: | |||
| Connecting Vision, Technology and a Structured Management Method to Accelerate Improvements at Foundation Health Partners | 19 Nov 2025 | 00:50:15 | |
Host Chris Backous in conversation with Dr. Angelique Ramirez (Foundation Health Partners), Robbi Bishop (Virginia Mason Institute), and Ian Petersen (Stat) about the magic of combining technology and a management system to optimize patient care. Featured in this episode: Dr. Angelique Ramirez | Robbi Bishop | Ian Petersen | Chris Backous | |||
| Bridge to Excellence with Three Rivers Hospital | 29 May 2026 | 00:35:36 | |
Join host Brenda McLeod in conversation with Jamie Boyer, German Meza, and Karen Gifford about implementing a management system at Three Rivers, a rural hospital in Washington state. Featured in this episode: Jamie Boyer | German Meza | Karen Gifford | Brenda McLeod | |||