ICA’s Contribution to Health Care
creating a culture of participation with health care professionals

Health care is a great profession and health professionals have a sense of vocation. We find people who love thier work and their colleagues, invest tireless effort tward the common good and make real differences in peoples lives.

Today, a complex health care system is putting excessive pressure on the ability to be effective. While front line nursing, medical, management, support and administrative staff work hard to help individuals and families at the center of the system, those same front line staff regularly partner with funders, advocates and other supporters. In addition, they must cooperate with ministries, municipalities and other agencies, all the while working with their own staff or team.

In our dramatically changing health care environment, every health professional is expected to do more with less. The shift to collaboration and community participation is one of the greatest challenges faced by health care professionals today.

People in the public, private and voluntary sectors are working to give new shape to systems and structures that will enable us all to lead healthy lives. Those involved in health care are stewards of an important "public good" and are working at the "cutting edge" of building a healthy society. We know we are living in a time of amazing potential. The flux we experience is an opening to new possibilities.

We see four major areas in which we can assist health care professionals.

Collaboration - - Public Consultation - - Teamwork - - Promoting Wellness

Collaboration

No one works alone. Collaboration and partnership have become the way to operate in our complex, interwoven society. More and more, it is becoming necessary to develop programs and services in partnership. Organizations are working across sectors to create and deliver programs.

It seems quite clear and it ought to be easy to do, but often it’s not. We find ourselves tangled in a web of interests. Meetings are often long, difficult and frustratingly unproductive. Finding a consensus and building commitment among several groups can be difficult.

Facilitation is one of the keys to successful collaboration. We are convinced that facilitators play a critical role in bringing people and organizations together. A facilitator who focuses on creating and guiding group processes enables everyone to participate more effectively.

• We facilitate planning and monitoring processes for substantial projects.
• We can provide ongoing follow through to ensure effective implementation.
• We provide training in methods that facilitate collaborative processes.

Public Consultation

It is becoming increasingly clear that citizens are becoming more aware, more knowledgeable and want to participate more directly in giving shape to health care systems. People know that they have valuable perspectives and they want them to count.

Saying it is pretty easy. Making it happen in ways that are positive and helpful seems to be far more of a challenge. Presentations are made. Questions are asked. Arguments break out. The struggle is often more focused on maintaining order and civility than on creative thinking and consensus formation.

We’ve successfully facilitated many events in which an organization wanted to talk with those whose interests are affected by their work. Our experience ranges from very local discussions to major provincial consultations. We can help you get the result you need to move forward with a real sense of what people want and need.

• We design consultation processes to meet your needs.
• We train focus group leaders
• We facilitate major conferences

  Teamwork

The workplace is undergoing a transformation. We are learning that effective teamwork leads to creativity and solid outcomes. We need each other to be truly effective. When a group is committed to a task, their focused power makes positive things happen.

Waving a magic wand won’t make teams work. There is no "silver bullet" in simply restructuring our workplaces and dropping teams in place of departments. Things go back to "business as usual" and people become frustrated. People need more than a new structure.

We’ve found that teams need clear tasks and a real sense of purpose. They need processes and tools that enable them to focus their collective energy. We’ve helped many groups in translate human capital into productivity. We facilitated team work with many organizations and we’ve trained people in the use of methods that enable them to be effective team leaders.

• We train you to use facilitation methods and tools.
• We train team leaders to provide effective guidance to workgroups.
• We develop designs for a wide variety of team work activities

  Promoting Wellness

One of the edges in health care is enabling people to participate actively in their own wellness. When people integrate healthy attitudes and practices into their lives, it improves their quality of life. It also relieves pressure on the medical parts of the health system. People take charge of their own lives.

No change is easy and lifestyle changes are often quite difficult. We all know that even the best lectures don’t do the job and better than rambling conversations. Getting people to reach those points that enable them to make real shifts in their life patterns is the key to positive change.

When programs involve an intimate interaction with new ideas, people are able to see how they fit into their life experience. We’ve helped groups develop programs and learn facilitation skills that allow people to go through a careful examination of how new ideas fit into their lives and make their own implementation plans.

• We create conversations that you can use or adapt to fit your own situation
• We conduct program design workshops
• We train facilitators to help people create practical plans