Module 3 of 4: Project Management in QI

Kasi Aten-Freese has worked in various healthcare roles for the last 13 years spanning front line operations to quality and process improvement leadership. Her passion throughout has been on improving healthcare quality and processes for patients and providers. She studied Lean and Kaizen under sensei Katsuya Koide and is Lean certified through Shigijutsu Global. In addition, she has been involved in the development of quality improvement curriculum for providers at several large healthcare organizations. She has consulted on or directly led over 100 quality improvement projects, spanning the value stream of the provider side of healthcare. In her current role as manager of clinical quality at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, she is responsible for partnering with organizational leadership, physicians and operations to assure that clinical quality is meeting best practice standards and driving future innovations representative of the organization's world class academic medical center vision.

Karyn Baum, MD, works in both quality improvement education and clinical operations. She is the Senior Consultant for the Educating for Quality initiative at the Association of American Medical Colleges, which seeks to support teaching organizations better integrate quality improvement work and education. At the University of Minnesota, Dr. Baum is the Associate Chair for Clinical Improvement for the Department of Medicine, overseeing all aspects of quality and safety including education and mentorship of junior faculty. She also leads many quality improvement projects as the Executive Medical Director of Care Transitions and Patient Flow at the University of Minnesota, including capacity, length of stay, and handoff work. She led the development of an interprofessional teamwork course for students from six health professions at the University of Minnesota. She was the Director of the University of Minnesota TeamSTEPPS Training Resource Center, an AHRQ-funded site which trains clinical staff in an evidence-based teamwork curriculum designed to improve patient safety. In this role she has overseen the certification of over 1500 trainers from throughout the United States and worldwide. In the past Karyn has acted as the CME Director for the Department of Medicine and the Medical Director of the Medical/Surgical unit and Utilization Management at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Baum has traveled throughout the United States and internationally including Japan and Iceland to speak and train others in this critical area of patient safety.