Staff Award for Excellence - Katie Grzyb

Katie Grzyb

Katie Grzyb

Continuous Improvement Specialist, Quality and Innovation Program

Nominator, Tammy Ellies: "Katie has a relentless pursuit of excellence, both in her project work and her professional development." 

Congratulatory Comments:

Work Performance

Since Katie joined our department seven years ago, she has consistently performed above and beyond expectations. She has completed ambiguous and complex project assignments, often with diverse stakeholders and multiple goals. She has consistently received Excellent performance ratings and positive 360 feedback. This past year, Katie took on more challenging assignments and expanded her leadership role within the team.

Katie successfully manages a multitude of quality improvement projects concurrently including a large-scale project aiming to reduce cirrhosis readmissions, efforts in reducing ED consultation turn-around times, leading work in all areas of the Internal Medicine GME Quality Improvement/Patient Safety program, trainer for HRO Universal Skills courses, and supporting projects led by her team members including medication monitoring and exam room optimization.

She takes pride in everything she does, and is passionate about improving – whether it is a process, a team, a relationship, or her own skills. She demonstrates a positive attitude, and handles project challenges with an open mind and a great attitude.

Leadership

Katie completed her Masters in Health Services Administration from Madonna University in May 2018. She has presented her work at two Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conferences, as well as several years of posters at the Michigan Medicine Quality Month. She is listed on multiple manuscripts, posters, and presentations from our faculty for projects that she led. She volunteered to become a trainer for the High Reliability Organization rollout this year. She is also the Quality team’s GME Education lead.

Katie has led a variety of large and small projects, where she is expected to identify and facilitate a group to gather stakeholders, define a problem, understand the current state, develop interventions, implement changes, and measure success. She is able to take ambiguous, undefined situations and develop clear problem statements, assess and convene the relevant stakeholder groups, lead the groups through feasible solutions, test and implement large-scale changes, and define and measure outcomes.

Katie played a key role the last few years in the GME Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Program, leading to improved resident satisfaction and alignment with programmatic efforts across Internal Medicine residency. She also piloted, evaluated, and finalized the 1st year lecture sessions and was critical in developing the video content for the new ambulatory QI program that was implemented across six General Medicine clinics.

Customer Service

Katie is always timely, thoughtful, and respectful in her written and verbal communications. She considers project client’s needs and interests, and makes sure everyone’s voice is heard. She has an ability to identify decision makers and relationships across the health system and predict how things affect different individuals and groups. She is also continuously making new connections to foster positive relationships and push forward on projects.

Process Improvement

Katie is a member of the Continuous Quality Improvement team for the department, so process improvement is the very nature of her job. In this role, she has led many projects that have meaningful outcomes over the last seven years. Most recently, she led projects that made an impact on patient safety, resident education, quality improvement, and patient satisfaction. Just a few examples of the many successful projects she has led include:

  • the design and implementation of a new chest pain algorithm, highly sensitive troponin t test, and MiChart HEART pathway in the Emergency Department.
  • the redesign and development of a comprehensive new Quality Improvement and Patient Safety curriculum for Internal Medicine residents over a 3-year period in conjunction with the GME program.