The Power of Collaboration

". . .much of what we've seen so far suggests that a large group of diverse individuals will come up with better and more robust forecasts and make more intelligent decisions. . ."
James Surowiecki
The Wisdom of Crowds

September 30 and October 1, I had the privilege to be invited to a gathering of about 35 diversity leaders from health care organizations throughout the country to have a very focused conversation about cultural competency in health care and all of the pieces that go along with that. In essence, we talked shop about something which all have a great passion for.

We started out Tuesday evening with dinner and speaker Dr. Francis Jackson. Dr. Jackson is a professor of nursing at Oakland University in Detroit. She spoke on health care disparities. Now, for those of us who have read and heard mountain stream on the subject the thought of this might be, "Okay and what's new?" I would honor the thought yet would be clear that Dr. Jackson had distinctions. She gave us a glimpse of the day in the life of her uncle with a plethora of co-morbidities who was not well versed in his diabetes care and was facing amputation. With her assistance he prevented the amputation of his leg. She contrasted this with a conversation about many others who have not been so fortunate.

She gave very real personal experiences that translated the research and statistics that we hear about into real life, anecdotal situations that potentially could have produced disparate health outcomes from clinical encounters that missed the mark.

I recommend Dr. Jackson as a speaker. She is as authentic as they come, as accessible (personality-wise) as she can be, and is going to deliver a message as real as it gets!

The second day, yesterday (the 1st--appropriate, as it was a first time gathering of these leaders in this format, hosted by Trinity Health and their team of SVP VeLois Bowers, Toni Green, and Chrishonda Smith) throughout the day we had the opportunity to hear from the wealth of knowledge in the room. It is too much to go into great detail, but we touched on everything from training and development, recruitment and retention, and supplier diversity to equity in patient care and health literacy.

I briefly talked about Health Culture Depot and Diversity HealthWorks, and it is likely that part of the proceedings will be published on the HCD site in the near future. I will blog that it is there when I get the write ups.

By the way, Diversity Health Works has been re-launched. Take a look and give me feedback on what is working. The content is coming so stay tuned. We will create the most content rich talent management site in health care! We will need your help to get there. . .

Yesterday, the richness of the conversation reminded me of how important collaboration is and the power that it brings to this conversation. Some of the people in the room may have considered themselves competitors, but for the purpose that we serve as healthcare professionals, we went further. It was powerful and I am grateful for having been a part of such a powerful learning opportunity!