Report on the January 2016 Meeting of the System-wide Collaboration Council

Dr. Aycan Turkmen, M.D., Doctors Council 2nd Vice-President, System-wide Collaboration Council (SWCC) Co-Chair and doctor from Coney Island Hospital, and NYC Health + Hospitals Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Ross Wilson, M.D. convened the third meeting of our SWCC at Gouverneur Health.  The SWCC is the oversight body that sets the direction for the Facility-based Collaboration Councils (FBCC), the goal of which is to significantly improve our patients’ experience and our doctors’ engagement.

With excellent attendance at the SWCC meeting, most of the two hours was spent in small group discussion in which frontline leaders from Doctors Council SEIU and executives from each of our facilities exchanged ideas about how to establish successful FBCCs which will have their first meeting this month.  It is through each FBCC that the processes  will be put in place to enable measureable progress in jointly overseen facility based improvement initiatives.

Dr. Wilson made clear what it will take for success: “Our goal is to improve our patients’ experience.  Success will depend on how the management and the frontline staff in each of our facilities jointly establish strategy and processes for effectiveness. Improved outcomes are dependent on that process.”

Front-line staff and management , grouped by facility , worked together  to develop meaningful agendas for the initial FBCCs meetings occurring in February, and set all the supporting logistics for a successful first meeting.  Report-outs from the groups showed great progress made toward improving communication, building trust, defining concrete goals and setting the groundwork for the FBCCs.

We are off to a strong start in this important work. While each FBCC will establish their own dialogue reflective of local conditions and culture, the SWCC has some unified expectations from the FBCC’s which include:

• The establishment of joint leadership of these meetings
• The creation of a safe environment for all discussion and expression of ideas
• The FBCCs are NOT a place for grievances or other contractual matters
• Interest based dialogue and consensus decision-making will be expected
• Improvement initiatives will be developed consistent with  both Vision 2020 and the parties’ joint  commitment to increased doctor empowerment and engagement
• System-wide, facility-wide, and departmental data will be shared  with the FBCCs to guide the discussion towards selection of improvement initiatives
• integration of the IHI Model of Improvement and use of the IHI Open School on-line courses  to assist our efforts.

The next meeting of the SWCC is on February 24^th at which time we will look forward to reports on the first meetings of out FBCC’s.