By Elizabeth Joyce Freeman, Senior Advisor, Stanford Medicine Center for Improvement (SMCI)
On October 11-12, 2022, approximately 218 attendees, from 45 institutions and 5 countries participated in this year’s conference at the Francis C. Arrillaga Alumni Center. The theme was Improving Together for All – Patients, Families, and Healthcare Workers. There were 46 presentations and 51 posters from conference participants. The organizing committee received 100 abstracts from which these presentations were chosen.
Following welcoming comments from Dean Minor and Stanford Medicine Children’s Health Chief Medical Officer, Denny Lund, Leilani Schweitzer, PEARL Patient Liaison, Stanford Medicine Health Care, and Alpa Vyas, Vice President and Chief Patient Experience Officer, Stanford Medicine Health Care, gave an extremely moving presentation on the inclusion of patient and family voices in improvement. Delegates then presented on topics including Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in improvement work. Following additional breakout and plenary sessions, Day One closed with a continuation of the discussion from previous conferences on the social and technical aspects of improvement led by Edgar and Peter Schein and John Shook.



The weather and setting were perfect for the evening reception with music provided by Hardy, Hemphill and Friends.
Day Two opened with a welcome from Stanford Medicine Health Care Chief Medical Officer, Niraj Sehgal. Dr. Paul Helgerson, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Virginia (UVA) Health, shared fascinating insights on the utility of Lean during the height of COVID and beyond at UVA. Paul spoke with no notes or slides and had the audience hanging on every word. This was followed by a Chief Medical Officer panel with Drs. Chris Longhurst, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Digital Officer, UC San Diego, Niraj Sehgal, Chief Medical Officer, Stanford Medicine Health Care, and Elaine Pretorius, Executive Director of Medical Services, Limestone Coast Health, South Australia. Dr. Terry Platchek and Jakaria Stewart provided expert facilitation of this robust discussion that included how each of these CMOs bring their humanity and care and compassion to their roles. The additional breakout sessions were all outstanding, leaving delegates torn which sessions to attend. Day Two closed with reflections from Jack Billi, MD, Former Chief Engineer for the Michigan Quality System at the University of Michigan, and a recap session with John Shook, during which each participant was asked to draw a relationship map and commit to actions they would take to address gaps between the current and desired state.
Sheri Nakamura, Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, announced the winners of the abstract poster competitions.
William Huen, MD, Associate Chief Medical Officer, Quality and Lean, Zuckerberg San Francisco General, received the best abstract award “We Can’t Achieve Quality without Equity” Advancing Health Equity Leadership Locally with A3 Thinking and Coaching Frameworks.
The People’s Choice Poster Award went to George Lourentzatos, Advisor, Strategic Planning & Innovation, Union Health Center, NY, with Co- Authors, Cody Dashiell-Earp, Monica Guillen, Jacqueline Camacho and Cindy Ruiz for their poster, Creating a Multi-Use Tiered Daily Management System in a 108-year-old Medium Sized Multi-Specialty Medical Home.
The Judge’s Choice Poster Award went to Kimmyrose Palma, RN, Patient Flow Coordinator, VA Palo Alto Health Care System, and Co-Author Lhaarnie Ablao, for their poster Improving Movement Time from ED Admission Order to the Acute Care Units.
Congratulations to all the award winners and thank you to all the conference participants. See you next year!





