Day One Workshops

All sessions take place from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. ET Feb. 11.

Kickstart your conference experience with our workshops on its opening day. These sessions are designed to provide a foundational understanding of key topics in healthcare systems and process improvement.

Whether you're a newcomer or a seasoned professional, you'll find value in these focused, skill-building workshops. Led by industry experts, you'll gain practical tools and strategies that you can immediately apply in your work.

The Story in the Stats: Data Visualization That Engages People and Drives Decisions

Adrienne Erdman
EwingCole

We’ve all heard “numbers don’t lie” and “a picture is worth a thousand words.” In reality, numbers can mislead and visuals are open to interpretation. Without care, even well-intentioned graphics can send mixed or incomplete messages.

In healthcare process improvement, data visualization is both a powerful analysis tool—for exploring data, revealing patterns, and sparking new questions—and a communication tool—for conveying insights, aligning stakeholders, clarifying trade-offs, and building consensus. This 4-hour workshop blends the two, teaching participants to design visuals that uncover insights, tell the right story for the right audience, and guide decisions effectively across different mediums.

Through hands-on exercises, participants will work with both quantitative and qualitative data, adapt visuals for different audiences (from community meetings to executive reviews), and ensure that their design choices support accuracy, clarity, and trust while driving action.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

Use visualization for discovery and decisions – Apply techniques to explore quantitative and qualitative data, uncover insights, and present them in ways that clarify priorities, trade-offs, and next steps.
Design audience- and medium-appropriate visuals – Adapt content and format for different stakeholders (executives, clinicians, community, academic) and delivery methods (print, slide decks, dashboards, video).
Ensure accuracy, clarity, and trust – Use quick-check methods, bias awareness, and pilot testing to confirm that visuals communicate the intended message effectively.
Evaluate and refine for impact – Critically review visualizations to improve clarity, memorability, and their ability to influence understanding and action.

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Improv for Improvers: Creative Facilitation Skills for Process Excellence

Dan Cashman
Cashman Klein

Process improvement professionals are great at analyzing processes, but facilitation often calls for quick thinking, adaptability, and the ability to spark collaboration in unexpected situations. Improv for Improvers blends core improv theatre principles with the realities of leading improvement teams. Through interactive games, practical tools, and plenty of laughter, participants will learn how to stay present, engage groups, and handle curveballs with confidence, all while making team members feel heard and valued.

Learning Objectives:

Apply improv principles to keep team engagement high in process improvement sessions.
Build active listening, adaptability, and “yes, and…” collaboration skills.
Handle unexpected facilitation challenges with confidence and creativity.
Use improv-based techniques to spark idea generation and overcome group resistance.

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A Simulation 101 Story: A Workshop in Three Acts

Jim Montgomery
HonorHealth
Erica Loughry, Jennifer Cowden, and Alex Tudor
BigBear.ai

There’s a reason that industries such as healthcare, supply chain, and manufacturing invest billions in improvement through simulation, and perhaps you have heard the term, “digital twin.” A realistic representation of a system helps us not only understand our current system but also to evaluate the best possible redesign of a current (or the most optimal design of a future) system. As the saying goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, you probably should have simulated it.”

This workshop will engage our audience throughout a three-act adventure. In Act I: “Once Upon a Model,” we introduce the audience to the fun world of discrete event simulation — what it is, why it matters, and the allure of their first one.

In Act II: “The Plot Thickens,” participants dive into building simulation models, navigating the mystery of arriving entities, who’s doing what to whom, and laying the foundation for meaningful insights.

Act III: “The Reveal” is where the story pays off. Participants learn to interpret results, visualize data, and explore scenarios to find the best path forward.

Learning Objectives:

After attending this workshop, attendees will be able to understand the basics of DES: What is it and why is it valuable?
After attending this workshop, attendees will learn essential model building skills and apply them towards building their own progressively challenging model.
After attending this workshop, attendees will understand how to analyze simulation produced data, create visual representations, and chose from optimal solutions by running “What if” scenarios.
While attending this workshop, attendees will have some fun along the way!

Technical Considerations:

Attendees will be required to bring their own laptop computers.
Attendees will need internet access.
After obtaining a list of attendees prior to the conference, we will provision access to a commercial discrete event simulation software. When students attend the workshop they will be referred to the sign-up page to set up a password with the email address provided serving as a sign-in ID.
If desired or needed, attendees can break off to work in pairs.

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Reimagining Healthcare Training: An Immersive Path to Safer Systems

Lukasz Mazur & Kinley Reeves
MaiaZura

Using 360° visuals, ambient audio, and realistic clinical settings, this training simulates the urgency and complexity of real-world teamwork — helping participants engage emotionally and reflect meaningfully on their role in high-reliability performance. This workshop will utilize MaiaZura’s Bizon360 Teamwork immersive training module that places learners inside a surgical environment, following the journey of a patient through a high-risk procedure. Along the way, learners build foundational skills in teamwork, communication, leadership, situational awareness, and situation monitoring. As the scenario unfolds, they observe and discuss how teams manage breakdowns and transitions — encouraging critical reflection and practical insight. They will also have opportunities to practice tools and techniques to improve communication and teamwork.

Learning Objectives

Recognize moments of opportunity for improved teamwork, communication, situation awareness, and situation monitoring
Practice evidence-based tools for improving improved teamwork, communication, situation awareness, and situation monitoring
Reflect on the value of giving and receiving psychological safety in complex situations
Reflect on the value of personal responsibility and patient advocacy
Recognize areas of opportunity for stability and excellence in complex situations
Consider all factors that can contribute to negative patient outcomes
Consider how all of the above leads to high reliability organizations
Reflect and reinvigorate the joy of their career

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