Building Collaborative Environments

"Everybody teaches, everybody learns" has become the mantra for Ascension Health clinical leadership as they begin the challenging work of building communities of practice and collaboration among our geographically dispersed physicians, nurses and executives.

Two of the initiatives that will help achieve clinical and operational excellence across the system are Clinical Neighborhoods and Ascension Health Exchange.

Clinical Neighborhoods

Twelve Clinical Neighborhoods have been formed across the system to encourage interaction and team building. Under the guidance of their "block captains," teams meet in person and online to celebrate successes, solicit answers to problems and share resources. These neighborhoods are randomly organized into these 12 small groups with clinical leaders from hospitals of all sizes. The small groups are a comfortable setting for clinical leadership to help improve communication and collaboration.

AscensionHealthExchange.org

Clinical Excellence and Ascension Health Ventures have teamed up to create AscensionHealthExchange.org, online clinical communities of excellence for chief medical officers and chief nursing executives.

AscensionHealthExchange.org encourages knowledge transfer around the system, as well as stimulating innovation, encouraging collaboration and fostering new ways of thinking. AscensionHealthExchange.org provides the user with an integrated suite of collaborative, web-based applications, tools and services that will accelerate the identification and diffusion of clinical excellence, best/effective practices and innovation. Clinical leadership teams are piloting the new tool, coming together in communities of practice to learn from one another and improve the safety and quality of care at Ascension Health.

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