Kate Balzer, Lmsw Email & Phone Number

Kate Balzer, Lmsw is a Change Manager at University of Michigan. She possess expertise in fundraising, nonprofits, event planning, grant writing, social media and 15 more skills. She is proficient in English. Colleagues describe her as "I have had the pleasure of working with Kate in her role as a Project Manager at Michigan Medicine, where our work centered around identifying opportunities to improve the patient and family experience across the health system. While Kate's initial focus specialized on managing a variety of programs from events to awards and communications – she evolved into being a key player to helping envision, plan and launch major initiatives that enable patient and family engagement and empowerment, and identifying/developing tools and resources to improve the care experience and outcomes across the health system. Kate has absolutely excelled in her abilities to incorporate patient, family and staff feedback and perspectives into the development of key projects, and has been pivotal in helping ensure that our approaches would be relevant and important to not only patients and their families but also to care teams. She has taken things from a 'need' or very much in 'rough draft' form, to become a point of pride for the department, and something that demonstrates clear value to the organization, clearly tracking on the return on investment. Kate has been keen to recognize the intensive multidisciplinary nature of healthcare, and has utilized her in depth content knowledge to take established best practices to new populations and settings. And through this, and her keen relationship-building skills, Kate has created a true network of staff and faculty that recognize the value of quality improvement efforts that benefit our key customers - patients and families. Kate has an understanding of what drives excellent customer service and instincts for identifying and pursuing areas for improvement. As such, she has been an advocate for incorporating culture improvements within our own teams and department, as well as across the system through her thoughtful inter-professional approach. Some of the highlights in this area of work include helping to develop a system wide training on patient centered care, utilizing high quality connections best practices, as well as other evidence based methodology that ultimately aim to improve the patient and staff experience. Kate was also the lead Project Manager in developing and launching the Ambassador Program, which was designed to improve wayfinding and induce friendly, approachable staff at key access points across the main health campus. Because of her diligence in setting this up, and working out the kinks, the HOPE (Helping Our Patients Everyday) Volunteer Ambassadors accompany patients and family members from the moment they enter the building until they reach their destination. The impact of this program is tremendous, and just one of many examples of the big picture thinking and detailed execution that Kate embodies. It was a true pleasure to have Kate on my team, and I highly recommend her as a person that not only substantially contributes to the work, but also someone that is an asset to team culture." and "The CEO of Food Gatherers would often remind me that hiring Kate Balzer was one of my best management decisions at the organization. I would always agree. Kate is first and foremost a detailed project manager with the uncanny ability to anticipate challenges and then create solutions without even breaking a sweat. Kate launched Food Gatherers social media platform by carefully curating content, writing warm and respectful responses to stakeholders, and by keeping ahead of trends that would boost our visibility online. Later, as Kate moved on to roles with greater responsibility at Food Gatherers, I witnessed her resiliency as she faced difficult HR decisions with both professionalism and empathy. Outside the workplace, Kate maintains a vast network of people who respect her work ethic, her positive attitude and service to the community through volunteerism. Kate adds extraordinary value to any workplace, organization or community that she is a part of. "

Listed skills include Fundraising, Nonprofits, Event Planning, Grant Writing, and 16 others.