Mapping Healthcare: Healthcare improvement lessons from around the world

What happens when a patient’s care is transferred from one clinician to another? In this episode, UC Davis medical students Ian Marquez, Nicholas Le, and Marco Oliveras explore I-PASS, a structured approach to safer, clearer clinical handoffs. They speak with Daniel West who explains how I-PASS helps healthcare teams build a shared mental model and communicate reliably under pressure. Their conver...

Healthcare bills in the United States contribute to over half of all personal bankruptcies, and unneeded care is a major driver. In low- and middle-income countries, the impact is even more severe. More healthcare isn’t always better medicine. In this episode, we look at the diagnostic cascade and the problem of medical overuse. Brent James helps us explore how over-testing and overdiagnosis compr...

Science tells us what the disease is, but the story tells us what the illness means to the person living it. We explore the field of narrative medicine, where healthcare meets humanity. This episode reveals how storytelling isn’t just an art. It’s a biological necessity that releases oxytocin and fosters deep empathy. Rebecca George and I discuss how narrative medicine evolved and provide practica...

Explore the transformative journey of Kenya’s free maternity care policy. We trace the policy’s evolution from the historic 2013 presidential directive to the modern Linda Jamii program. Why did hospital deliveries surge by nearly 100% while frontline clinicians and healthcare staff faced near collapse conditions? From delays in hospital reimbursements to the hard reality of bed-sharing, Lydia Oku...

Is your job title just a label or a signal of trust? In this episode, we go beyond the word "provider" to explore the ethics of naming in modern medicine. From the 1965 Medicare origins of the "P-word" to the complex journey of Professional Identity Formation, we discuss how titles like Physician, Nurse Practitioner, and Physician Assistant shape team-based care and the therapeutic relationship. J...

We invest millions in health technology, redesign workflows, and publish protocols grounded in the best available evidence. Yet many healthcare improvement efforts stall or never fully take hold. Not because the idea was wrong, but because the message didn’t land. Camilla Covello shares how somewhere between the boardroom and the bedside, communication breaks down and frontline teams are left to i...

Remember those clanging pots for healthcare heroes? The gratitude has faded but the dangers are louder than ever. In this episode, we explore five hazards - biological, sharps, ergonomic, violent, and psychological - threatening those who care for us. There are two million needle stick injuries each year and 60% of healthcare staff face workplace violence. Piyawan Limpanyalert and I look at soluti...

How would you survive a critical emergency hundreds of miles from civilization? Retrieval medicine is a high-stakes flying ICU that brings medical expertise directly to a patient’s side. In this episode we trace the evolution of care in the air, from 1870s mail balloons to modern jets that fight the laws of physics. Shannon Nott from the Royal Flying Doctor Service tells us about delivering lifesa...

A mother dies from preventable causes related to pregnancy or childbirth every two minutes. We have the medical knowledge about what works to prevent these avoidable deaths. So why do they still occur? Explore the global maternal mortality crisis and the three delays that turn a joyful event into a tragedy. Abebe Alene tells us how Dessie Hospital in Ethiopia halved its maternal deaths. We talk ab...

In rural counties most pharmacies are independently owned. When these rural pharmacies close, they don’t just leave a gap in healthcare, they affect a region's economy. Because who wants to move to a town where you can’t get a prescription filled for 40 miles? Hear the audio story that I created at the Transom Story Workshop on Catalina Island about Sue Ponce, the sole pharmacist on Catalina Islan...

In healthcare, we’re trained to move fast, to diagnose, treat, and fix. But what happens when we slow down just enough to ask a different question: What matters to you? In this episode, we reflect on how one simple question can transform not just clinical decisions, but relationships, trust, and meaning for patients, families, and clinicians. Christian von Plessen shares what happens when we stop...

Today we’re in a place where everybody knows your name, but also where the nearest specialist may be a three hour drive away. In a city, your physician is someone you may see a couple of times a year. In a rural area you see them in the grocery store or at the Friday night football game. This creates a whole new level of social connection. John Brennan tells us about his experience providing prima...

Healthcare faces urgent challenges. Rising complexity, widening inequities, burned-out clinical teams, and health systems stretched to their limits. But what if the biggest risk is playing it safe? Behind every breakthrough in healthcare, there is a moment when someone chose to take a thoughtful, informed risk. Ellen Joan van Vliet tells us how to question the status quo, experiment responsibly, a...

About 40% of nurses say they plan to leave nursing in the next five years because of unmanageable stress, workload, and understaffing. There are scales to measure the health of a workplace that look at staffing, leadership support, nurse-physician relationships, participation in hospital affairs, and the quality of care delivered. Sabelile Tenza tells us about her research on the relationship betw...

Transitions of care from hospital to home are some of the riskiest moments in a person’s healthcare journey. Medication lists change, high‑risk medications require careful monitoring, and patients often deal with overwhelming amounts of instructions. Linda Graudins tells us how pharmacists play crucial roles in helping people on complex medication regimens navigate these challenges safely. We’ll l...

Ever wish you could skip noisy hospitals and heal in your own bed? We explore Hospital at Home, a game-changing model that brings acute care—from IV meds to 24/7 monitoring—directly to your living room. We trace how this 1990s pilot became a global trend, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic and new government payment models. Michael Montalto shares how Hospital at Home prevents unnecessary hospit...

You're in a hospital. There’s a whirlwind of people in scrubs and white coats. It can be confusing trying to figure out who's who. Is that person a nurse, a respiratory therapist, a resident physician, a senior doctor? Who's actually in charge? It sounds simple but can be quite complicated – knowing who is actually treating you in a hospital. It is a real problem because while those in the medical...

How much of our inner world is shaped by the world around us? And does depression in Oslo feel the same as depression in Oklahoma City? The language we use to talk about our pain and even the pain itself can be deeply cultural. For a long time the approach to mental health was to stick on a label and treat the symptoms. That's evolving from a one-size-fits-all approach to viewing mental health thr...

Antibiotic resistance is when bacteria evolve to withstand the medicines designed to kill them. About half the time that we use an antibiotic, it might not be needed or it's the wrong one for the job. That misuse is what's driving antibiotic resistance. Resistant infections threaten modern medicine's ability to manage infections and lead to longer illnesses, hospital stays, higher costs, and death...

Behind so many children with complex medical needs there is an often invisible support system. The people we're talking about are family members of children with medical complexity. Pediatric neurodisability specialist Helen Leonard shares her experience navigating the healthcare system with her son, Matthew. Health systems are generally better at handling single-issue fixable conditions, such as...

When we think of healthcare professionals we usually picture them treating illnesses. But the reality is that major health gaps aren't usually caused by clinical failures – they are the result of social, political, economic, or educational factors. Advocacy in healthcare involves using your voice and expertise to influence not only individual health, but the health of our society. Susan Kressly, p...

Human factors as a field emerged during World War II because of the need to improve the design of aircrafts and other military equipment, while paying attention to human fatigue, perception, thinking, understanding, and usability. It's where psychology meets engineering to design processes that make it easy for people to do the right thing. Since then human factors has expanded into health care to...

We’re dealing with another delivery dilemma, the rising global rates of medically unnecessary Cesarean sections. Latin America has some of the highest C-section rates in the world and Pedro Delgado tells us about the complex interplay of factors related to childbearing women, societal norms, clinicians, and healthcare systems that drives this practice. It’s about striking a delicate balance — ensu...

Too little, too late. And too much, too soon. This and the next episode are about the c-section paradox: the rising rates of medically unnecessary C-sections globally and the underuse of c-sections when they are really needed. Hear about the complex interplay of factors that come into play for a birthing mother not getting a c-section when it's medically needed, and how this causes medical problem...

In today’s episode the tables are turned and I am a guest on the The Walk and Talk Improvement Podcast in Ireland. This is a special episode to mark the 2025 World Patient Safety Day. This year’s theme is “Safe care for every newborn and every child” and it highlights the need to prevent avoidable harm in child health settings. I’m interviewed by John FitzSimons, a Consultant Pediatrician at Child...