O V E R V I E WCollaboration Specialists has applied our range of skills to policy arenas as well. Ginny Morrison was invited to participate in Patient Advocacy Summit II, a think tank considering professionalization of health care advocacy both at the bedside and in policy. This multidisciplinary gathering of academics and practitioners reflected on necessary competencies, guidance for the field, expansion of the literature and academic programs, and related issues. Ginny spoke on conflict issues impacting attendees of a Lumetra conference, the California arm of Medicare. She also served on the multidisciplinary advisory board at the formation of Consumers Advancing Patients Safety.
We have mediated where policy issues were implicated in California’s regulatory oversight of skilled nursing facilities, and we have facilitated planning sessions for coordinating comment on health care and other policy issues, such as:
- Generating design recommendations for an envisioned medical unit offering Eastern and Western methodologies in cancer treatment participants included practitioners of all related disciplines and patients
- Patients devising statewide health care policy recommendations
- New Orleans residents and diaspora providing input to resource allocation decisions
- Working class families determining policy advocacy priorities
