Professional Development

Everyone gets excited about new biomedical innovations, but how do we make sure they fit in healthcare workflows and patient health tech systems? How do we know if the payor’s interest is aligned with the innovation user? Come to this session to align your innovation compass with the roadmap to market success.

This is the 2nd event of the 2025 Biomedical Innovation Fireside Chat Series, hosted by the ITHS Technology Development Center.

• Melinda Yormick, RN, MBA is founder and CEO of CLARA a “traffic control” system inside hospitals, orchestrating operations to get teams and equipment to patients when they need it most.
• Eric Larsen is an experienced entrepreneur and angel investor who also serves as Board Chair at Alliance of Angels. He has helped several startup companies raise financing rounds.
• Moderated by Teddy Johnson, MBA, Director of the Technology Development Center at the Institute of Translational Health Sciences at University of Washington.

Series Sessions: Thursdays, 2-3pm over Zoom

• Jan 16, 2025: Women in Life Science and Healthcare Entrepreneurship
• Jan 30, 2025: Product Market Fit – Tips and Tricks
• Feb 13, 2025: Community-Driven Innovation
• Feb 27, 2025: Transitioning from Research to Commercialization
• Mar 13, 2025: Strategies for Increasing Diversity in Clinical Trials

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Biomedical Innovation Fireside Chats is an annual series of free, virtual events hosted via Zoom and recorded for those who can’t attend live. In each session, a regional program leader hosts a panel of biomedical entrepreneurs, investors, and industry experts. These speakers will highlight their biomedical entrepreneurial journeys and share key information with attendees.

Learn more about the ITHS Technology Development Center:  https://www.iths.org/investigators/services/technology-development-center/

Description

Emotional intelligence (EI) is crucial for effective leadership. Competencies and characteristics of EI include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management, empathy, and motivation. Emotional intelligence has been associated with higher productivity, performance and job satisfaction in numerous fields. Leaders with high EI are more capable and confident and are able to relate more positively with others on the team. High EI correlates to crucial workplace skills including conflict management, communication and teamwork.

We will ask participants to complete an EI assessment prior to the session. During the session, we will discuss your strengths, areas for improvement, and strategies for boosting your EI.

This is the 5th session of the 2024–2025 Team Science Seminar Series.

Learning Objectives

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

1. Utilize a self-assessment survey to understand your strengths and areas for improvement related to EI competencies.
2. Understand the basic competencies of emotional intelligence and how these competencies impact leadership.
3. Identify one to two actions that you take to strengthen your emotional intelligence.

Pre-Work

Please download and complete this Emotional Intelligence assessment before the session.

[prettyfilelink size="319 KB" src="https://www.iths.org/wp-content/uploads/TS_BC_2021_Emotional_intelligence_questionnaire.pdf" type="pdf"]Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire[/prettyfilelink]

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About the Speakers

Brenda K. Zierler, PhD, RN, FAAN, is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Biobehavioral Nursing and Health Informatics in the University of Washington (UW) School of Nursing. Dr. Zierler conducts interdisciplinary research that advances the fields of interprofessional collaborative practice, team science, implementation science, and quality improvement to improve team and patient outcomes. Dr. Zierler teaches Team Science and Leadership in the PhD program and Quality Improvement, Patient Safety and Informatics in the undergraduate nursing program. Her primary appointment is in the UW School of Nursing but she holds three adjunct appointments – two in the UW School of Medicine (Department of Surgery, Division of Vascular Surgery & Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education) and one in the UW School of Public Health (Department of Health Systems and Population Health).

Dr. Zierler is co-lead of the Team Science Core for UW’s Institute for Translational Health Sciences (CTSA).

Jennifer Sprecher  is Director of Strategy Development and Deployment with the School of Nursing. Ms. Sprecher works with organizations to achieve excellence through Strategy development, Lean Project Management, balanced scorecards, change management, benchmarking, team problem solving, team and leadership coaching.

Ms. Sprecher is a strong team facilitator, called upon to facilitate high-level teams where interaction and reaching objectives are critical. Sample facilitations include strategic planning, building collaborations, designing and developing new services, products and processes, implementing process improvements, implementing research studies and creating new research centers. She has worked extensively in the past few years within the arena of team science and applying team concepts to innovative development and research teams.

Before the UW School of Nursing, Ms. Sprecher focused exclusively on health research in the Institute of Translational Health Sciences, also within the University of WA. Prior to the UW, she spent 7 years as Executive Director of the Washington State Quality Award (WSQA), a Baldrige-based non-profit organization. With a background in Industrial Engineering, Ms. Sprecher has been working with process improvement for over 25 years using continuous process improvement methods including Lean, Lean-Sigma, Plan Do Check Act and 6S (5S workplace organization combined with Safety) and Total Quality Management.

Ms. Sprecher has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, a Master’s of Science in Management Systems, is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt and an International Coaching Federation ACC-certified Leadership Coach.

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