Dan Liljenquist
Intermountain is one of 10 finalists in Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards (WCI) in the pandemic response category for our work on ProjectProtect. Now in its fifth year, the awards honor the companies, policies, projects, and concepts committed to solving health and climate crises, social injustice, or economic inequality. A panel of magazine editors and reporters selected 33 category winners and more than 400 finalists from a pool of more than 4,000 submissions—the most ever submitted.
Led by Intermountain Healthcare and supported by Latter-Day Saint Charities and University of Utah Health, ProjectProtect was the largest Utah-based volunteer effort since the 2002 Olympic Winter Games. Its 50,000 volunteers donated more than 750,000 hours to create nearly 6 million medical-grade facemasks, 50,000 face shields, and thousands of reusable isolation gowns.
“ProjectProtect represents the very best of us,” says Dan Liljenquist, Intermountain senior vice president and chief strategy officer. “Not only did it result in life-saving PPE, it demonstrates what we’re capable of achieving when we come together as a community around a shared purpose. This recognition belongs to each volunteer whose selfless dedication made this extraordinary achievement possible. Thank you.”
This is Intermountain’s second consecutive WCI recognition, following the HerediGene Population Study’s recognition last year.