Collaboration Specialists

Core Values :

The team of professionals providing services through Collaboration Specialists believes that:

The patient and family are the primary focus within the health care delivery system.
Through personal integrity and enhanced capacity, conflicts can be managed, which improves patient outcomes and conserves valuable organizational resources.
It is an ethical responsibility to develop solutions to complex problems that keep health care professionals from delivering good quality care.
Individuals and organizational culture are interdependent. Through intention and personal accountability, individuals can influence culture change, improve the environment of care, and restore meaning to their work.
Communication and collaboration are critical to safe patient care.
Facilitative and transformative methods of conflict resolution are effective means for developing long-lasting solutions to intractable conflicts.
Managing conflict requires deliberate skill development and consistent practical application.
Incorporating complementary conflict resolution processes can create a healing environment that fosters workforce retention, decreased litigation, and increased patient satisfaction.

Ginny Morrison, JD

(415) 524-8203

Collaboration Specialists is led by Ginny Morrison, JD. She works with health care organizations and prison systems to make collaboration practical, improve patient safety, and advance culture change.

Ms. Morrison applies conflict management principles to patient safety implementations, operational issues, clinical team and research disputes, unanticipated outcomes discussions, quality improvement efforts, and bioethics consultations. She publishes on these topics and addresses health care audiences internationally. She coaches and trains physicians, nurses, health care leaders, and mental health professionals in many forms of conflict management, and she leads interdisciplinary dialogues to improve understanding across interest groups. In doing so, she draws on her background as a professional stage and screen actress and musician.

Ms. Morrison is a charter member of Mediators Beyond Borders and has served on the national Executive Council of the Association for Conflict Resolution’s Health Care Section. She has led workgroups affiliated with the alumni of the Harvard School of Public Health Healthcare Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Leadership Program, as well as the 2005 Patient Advocacy Summit.

Ms. Morrison serves in Special Masterships overseeing the development and delivery of outpatient, intermediate care, and acute care mental health services; parole services; and alternatives to incarceration for California’s prison system, the largest in the U.S.

She is a founding advisor for Consumers Advancing Patient Safety and a member of its board’s conflict-of-interest committee, and has longstanding affiliations with ethics committees and IRBs in academic medical centers and community hospitals. She has completed executive coursework on organizational change, dialogue, and conflict through Harvard’s Program on Negotiation, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Academy of Court-Appointed Masters.

Ms. Morrison has participated on mediation and Special Master panels for the California Court of Appeals, First Appellate District; the Medicare program in California (Lumetra); and numerous Northern California courts and bar associations. She also sits as an arbitrator and an administrative hearing officer for several municipalities and the State Bar of California. In prior practice, Ms. Morrison represented individual plaintiffs and defendants in federal and state court actions. Her practice included employment, health law, institutional conditions, and contractual matters.

Collaborative Partnerships

Collaboration Specialists partners with companies with complementary expertise. Services are available throughout the U.S. and Canada as we draw on the talents of doctors, nurses, attorneys, and other conflict resolution professionals. By combining with experts in training, mediation, negotiation, systems design, and related fields, we are able to provide a broad range of services to meet the diverse needs of health care organizations.

Collaborative Partners Include:

Deborah Acker, CNM, MSN, JD

Ms. Acker is an attorney specializing in conflict resolution and intellectual property. She formerly worked as a master’s-trained certified nurse midwife for 20 years in a variety of health care settings. In her role as a midwife, she organized and ran obstetric services in teaching hospitals for under-served patients. Now, Deborah serves as a mediator and trainer in health care settings, a mediator for disputes involving intellectual property, and a legal search consultant.

Brian P. Goldstein, MD, MBA, FACP

Dr. Goldstein is a health care mediator and Executive Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and Chief of Staff of the University of North Carolina Hospitals. In these roles, Dr. Goldstein leads organizational efforts in performance improvement and patient safety; the application of information technology in clinical practice; hospital clinical regulatory compliance; graduate medical education; and managing hospital patient care capacity. Prior to joining the faculty at UNC, Dr. Goldstein served as Medical Director and consultant for multi-specialty physician group practices and for managed care organizations. Dr. Goldstein continues to practice General Internal Medicine at UNC Hospitals and in UNC’s ambulatory care offices.

mediate.calm ™

Led by a physician-negotiator/mediator, mediate.calm ™ assists disputing parties through a creative, controlled, and principled method of relationship-building and problem-solving. The principal spheres of activity are:

conflict assessment

interest-based negotiation services

individual and group mediation

professional and personal coaching

team-building

organizational conflict management

conflict systems design

change management workshops

conflict management training

Werner Institute for Negotiation and Dispute Resolution

The Werner Institute’s Program on Healthcare Collaboration and Conflict Resolution is the first university-based program designed to integrate emerging healthcare issues with the practice of alternative dispute resolution. Its goal is to create education and research opportunities that advance the field of healthcare dispute resolution. Drawing from an inter-professional community of practitioners and educators, the Institute provides professional development programs, academic courses, clinical training, research, and dialogue, with a focus on improving communication, collaboration, and conflict management across the healthcare industry.