Goal

In creating healthy workplaces and an integrated healthcare system, the development of an ongoing council infrastructure is essential to provide a horizontal organizational structure that works with the hierarchical structure to enhance wide spread engagement and achieve organizational effectiveness. The goal of councils is to improve service and working relationships. It provides ongoing staff leadership, accountability and interdisciplinary decision making at the point of care.

We Intend to see Councils who:

» Are collectively committed to the work of creating the best place in the world for patients to come for care and the best place for practitioners to grow and learn and work.
» Will create a sacred, safe place of learning formed by meaningful conversations, healthy relationships, and focused on shared purpose;
» Are able to grow in the midst of conflict, diversity, and change;
» Master the principles of partnership and dialogue;
» Develop consensus about their achievements;
» Use shared decision making and consensual processes as an operating norm;
» Connect with other healthcare partners across the continuum of care to provide seamless care;
» Have ownership for service and outcomes of service and organizational success;
» Consciously tap the wisdom of their peers to enhance innovation and advancement of practice and share the collective understandings and decisions made by the Council with peers.

Services

» Assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation services related to installation and sustainability of partnership councils. This includes assisting an organization in moving their current horizontal system to next generation form.
» Council members are introduced to skills like dialogue, partnership, and polarity management to support them in achieving successful council planning, implementation and outcomes.
» Knowledge and strategies from hundreds of people engaged in council work for over two decades and explores practical application of these learnings to address unique cultural needs.
» Educational offerings, and written materials that:

1. Identify the reasons to have an ongoing council infrastructure to provide a way for all levels and areas to participate in addressing clinical/service and working relationship issues.
2. Delineate the components and success factors of an effective council.
3. Identifies appropriate decision-making strategies for directive and participative decisions.
4. Introduce the key principles of partnership and dialogue.
5. Apply polarity management to address ongoing dilemmas.
6. Articulate the phases of a council journey and ways to capture and communicate progress.
7. Identify systems support and a timeline for implementing and sustaining councils.

Outcomes Engineering

A way to capture and communicate council competency and contribution, Outcomes Engineering offers a web-based application, Journey Mapping, as a practical, informative, and insight-producing method for tracking, measuring, and reporting Partnership Council work.

Elements of the Journey Mapping Application:
» Council Competencies and Impacts: Quarterly summary reporting of the work of the Council that includes self-assessment based on 13 core competencies (e.g., membership, managing work flow, and measuring performance) and estimation of contributions to the workplace across 9 high impact areas (e.g., clinical quality improvement and financial resource impact).

» State of the Council ("Taking the Pulse"): Monthly reporting of Council meetings and real-time assessment of the "health and vitality" of the Council (in terms of momentum, relevancy, Council member interactions, and perceived impact by others).

» Workplace Contributions: Periodic documentation and self-assessment of contributions of the Partnership to changes in the unit/department or at the organizational level.

Value of Journey Mapping to the Work of Partnership Councils:
1. Provides the means for Partnership Councils to capture their maturation, competency mastery, contributions to their respective units/departments, and their impact on the organizational culture.
2. Allows immediate compilation of performance data across Councils to provide an overall picture of Council work at the organizational level.
3. Exploits the advantages of the Internet to permit new contributions and learning across Councils to be quickly shared with others.
4. Pinpoints areas where Council work might be enhanced significantly.