About Sugar Creek Solutions
From then until now...
Sugar Creek Solutions LLC (SCS) was formed in 2003 to devise strategy, to envision systems, and to design specialized products for the patient-room space of healthcare.
As those products and their surrounding systems became more complex, SCS assisted systems-integrators and hospitals in understanding, designing, implementing and troubleshooting those multi-vendor technical systems.
SCS then developed an innovative, transdisciplinary model of organizations as sociotechnical systems to understand and to manage better the complex interdependency of organizational culture, structure, processes and training with technology.
Now, Sugar Creek Solutions utilizes that approach and model to improve the processes, quality, and overall performance of hospitals, companies, and other organizations across a wide range of industries, markets and skill sets.
SCS offers introductory seminars, half and full-day workshops, and extended on-site collaboration in assessing, analyzing, designing, and implementing positive change.
Vision Statement
Sugar Creek Solutions imagines a world where organizations – purpose-driven human collaborations – are healthy, vibrant, resilient, agile, continuously learning, continuously improving, efficient with resources, and highly effective in delivering high-quality value in pursuit of their respective missions.
Mission Statement
Sugar Creek Solutions is a leading advocate and practitioner of transdisciplinary, integrative, holistic Organizational Engineering that understands, designs, analyzes, and improves organizations as sociotechnical systems: to encourage and equip them to be the best that they can be, and to make the world a little better, one organization at a time.
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About our people
Kevin Nortrup
graduated summa cum laude from the University of Illinois in Computer Engineering.
He is a Fellow Member of HIMSS (FHIMSS) and an active member of the Society for Health Systems (SHS), the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), and the International Society for Systems and Complexity Science for Health (ISSCSH).
He holds a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt (LSSGB), and he is a Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems (CPHIMS) and a Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP).
For his application of systems-thinking and systems-engineering to management-engineering and process-improvement (ME/PI) in healthcare, Kevin received the 2018 SHS/HIMSS Excellence in Healthcare Management Engineering/Process Improvement Award.
As Principal at Sugar Creek Solutions, Kevin researches, practices and champions a transdisciplinary approach to managing the complexity of organizations, one that recognizes them as "artificial life-forms" whose health is best accomplished by restoration and cultivation of inherent wellness, not by episodic imposition of external remediation.
Highlights
- 2019: contributed "Disappointment-Driven System Improvement in Healthcare" as chapter 18 in EMBRACING COMPLEXITY IN HEALTH: The Transformation of Science, Practice, and Policy. Sturmberg, Joachim P. (Editor) (2019). S.l.: SPRINGER NATURE
- 2019: presented "Interoperability and Other Systemic Considerations of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH)" at Oakland University Healthology Symposium
- 2019: presented "Turbocharging Quality and Process Improvement in Healthcare by Leveraging Disappointment" at SHS Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference
- 2018: presented "The Informatics Pause" at Southern California HIMSS Clinical Informatics Summit
- 2018: presented "The Big Picture for Improving Quality and Value" at Kentucky Bluegrass HIMSS Annual Conference
- 2018: presented "Understanding and Improving Quality and Value from a Systems Perspective" at SHS Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference
- 2018: moderated "After PCAST: The Role of Systems Engineering in Healthcare" panel discussion at SHS Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference
- 2018: received "SHS/HIMSS Excellence in Healthcare Management Engineering/Process Improvement Award"
- 2017: presented "Quality and Value in Healthcare: Simple Goals for a Complex System" at Systems and Complexity for Health Conference
- 2017: presented "The Big Picture: Improving Quality, Value and Integration" at Midwest Fall Technology Conference
- 2017: planned and chaired Midwest Fall Technology Conference for the Indiana chapter of HIMSS
- 2017: presented "The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of Systems Engineering" at Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE) annual conference
- 2017: presented "Modeling, Debugging and Designing Companies & Institutions as Systems" at Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE) annual conference
- 2017: presented "Getting Serious About a Systems Approach to Healthcare" at INCOSE Healthcare Working Group, Agile Methods Conference
- 2017: presented "Improving the Process of Process-Improvement in Healthcare Systems" at SHS Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference
- 2017: presented "A Call to Action: From Improving Process to Improving Systems" at Healthcare Information & Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference
- 2016: presented "The Dilbert Solution: A Systems Approach to Remediating Corporate Stupidity" at INCOSE Great Lakes Regional Conference
- 2016: presented "Up Periscope! Extending the Effective Range of Systems Engineering" at Institute of Industrial & Systems Engineers (IISE) annual conference
- 2016: presented "Implications and Applications of a Systems Approach in Healthcare" at SHS Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference
- 2015: presented "Escaping the Matrix: A Systems Approach to the Intentional Design of Organizations" at Organization Design Forum Conference
- 2015: presented "A Systems Approach To Healthcare" at SHS Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference
- 2010+: troubleshooting multi-vendor interactive/infotainment systems in hospitals
- 2008+: attended Organizational Systems Renewal workshop & conference (Seattle University)
- 2008: granted 11th US patent, for "On screen display as diagnostic aid"
- 2006: created, designed & introduced IM103 (predecessor of IMX101) to interface standard IT equipment safely in patient room
- 2003: founded Sugar Creek Solutions LLC: systems-engineering and interfacing products
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