Kaiser Permanente wanted to strengthen its culture of safety and accountability — and knew that real change would require more than policy. It would require connection. Our challenge was to create a storytelling initiative that could spark conversation, encourage reflection, and drive learning around some of the most difficult moments in healthcare: the ones where something goes wrong.
The Sharp End - Kaiser Permanente
Creative Direction & Production
Context
Insight
Research shows that people are 22x more likely to remember information when it’s delivered through story rather than fact alone. And yet, most safety education in medicine still relies on static modules and sterile language.
To shape this project, we looked to ECRI’s Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for 2025, identifying key themes like health IT complexity, workforce burnout, and care coordination failures. Working closely with physicians and safety leaders across the organization, we developed a series of emotionally resonant narratives that aligned with these systemic issues — and felt real, not rehearsed.
Working in tandem with Charles Hummel, MD, PhD, we created The Sharp End — a narrative podcast series where Kaiser clinicians tell the stories of mistakes, near misses, and moments of moral injury, anonymously and without shame. Each episode is designed as both reflection and learning tool — pairing personal experience with expert insight to foster empathy, accountability, and systemic improvement.
I partnered with doctors to craft a format that would resonate internally: emotionally grounded, professionally relevant, and psychologically safe. The series is designed for both listening and discussion, with each story prompting larger conversations across departments and care teams at in-person events.
Solution
Impact
Launching Summer 2025
“Matt dove into our complex culture and within short order was able to tell our stories better than anything I’d seen us do before. He’s a rare combo of heart, empathy and execution. He just gets it.”
Charles Hummel, MD, PhD
Regional Physician Director for Patient Safety - Kaiser Permanente