OHN's 12 Health IT Best Practices, Part 2: Collaboration

....Once viewed as a friendly means to gain a strategic and competitive advantage, collaboration is the means to effectively address transitioning a broken health care delivery system to that of a new and improved patient-centered care system of the future. If we can efficiently and affordably make that collaborative shift, health care will not be the predominant headline as one of the leading contributors to our nation’s economic debt crisis, as well as sky rocketing chronic health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and blood pressure.

Unfortunately, the reality is that few of us have knowledge or experience in how to implement and practice true collaboration. For many of us, the concept remains vague or inspirational at best. We want to do it, but we have no experience in how to do it, or at least one that benefits a national public and private industry (health care) remodel. As impassioned agents of health care, it’s in our nature to carry the weight and burden of this challenge on our shoulders, often asking “How can I make a difference or where do I start?”