Drawing on four recent Mayo Clinic projects, we look at:

• how structured education, participation tracking, and simulated RCA increased radiology residents’ participation in safety-event investigations by 33%;

• how a one-hour simulated RCA improved residents’ comfort with RCA participation, understanding of what to expect, and ability to identify system issues;

• how low-cost, workflow-embedded changes to privacy, wait-time communication, and physical comfort raised top-box nuclear medicine waiting-area comfort scores from 76% to 85% while the check-in wait-time measure remained stable; and

• what 1,106 Mayo Clinic Quality Academy projects involving 10,063 team members reveal about teamwork, efficiency, multidisciplinary collaboration, and sustainable improvement.

References and access:

1. Reyes C, Ponce LM, Hannafin CL, et al. Improving patient safety education for radiology residents: Using a quality improvement approach. Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology. 2025;54(5):568-573. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40517116/

2. Fishleder MH, Hannafin CL, Ponce LM, et al. Exploring the feasibility and effectiveness of simulated root cause analysis for radiology training. Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology. 2026;55(2):181-184. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41177709/

3. Tan N, Hannafin CL, Ponce LM, et al. Improving comfort in the nuclear medicine waiting area: A quality improvement initiative. Current Problems in Diagnostic Radiology. 2026;55(4):501-504. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41912369/

4. Tan N, Rohila V, Reyes C, et al. Cultivating a Quality Improvement Culture With Mayo Clinic Quality Academy. American Journal of Medical Quality. 2026;41(3):133-138. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41961077/

AI disclosure: This episode was co-created with AI. I supplied a brain dump and the source papers; ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini helped create and shape the final content.