Two minds are better than one! What makes for productive partnerships?
Blog post by InspireNet Leadership Council member, Martha MacLeod and Suzanne Johnston
Suzanne: Martha and I recently found ourselves together at the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research presenting a poster on the joint work of Northern Health (NH) and the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) on transformational change work underway in moving forward with primary care and community services integration, including changes in nursing practices and roles.
We reflected on this and wondered: How did we get here together to this space?
Martha: In Northern BC, where resources are limited and needs are great, a multi-level partnership has developed between Northern Health and the University of Northern British Columbia. The partnership is particularly evident in Nursing, where nurses and faculty and students work together on common problems, in many places within the organization.
A good example of the partnership in action among staff nurses/students /instructors is “Bugbears in Nursing”. Twice a year, fourth year BScN students create research posters for use in practice. The posters address research questions or perplexing issues identified by nurses in practice. The students investigate the literature and then create research posters, which are presented in the regional hospital or health unit. The NH Nursing Research Facilitator makes the posters available to nurses throughout the region. This project, which started several years ago with a small list of topics, has become a regular event, with the nurses identifying topics, eager for students to take them up.
Suzanne: Another example is at the health authority level. NH is in the process of reorienting itself as a primary health care-based health authority. This means engaging physicians, nurses and other NH staff, and communities in a structured process of change to better align all efforts in ways that will improve the health of the population. The partnership with the University is helping to make this change, as Martha and other university researchers work with us to study the process of change. We are convinced that through collaborative relationships and actions system change can be realized in ways that the change will ‘stick’. We are talking here about the kind of work that produces meaningful system change and will result in improved outcomes for patients, improved provider satisfaction and less cost to the system.
Martha: The benefits of a collaborative relationship are not always obvious at the beginning of the relationship.
Suzanne: I agree. The first benefit I noticed was that through our discussions and planning, we had opportunities to carefully identify and think through the problems and challenges. As we all know, 80% of the work in getting to workable solutions comes from accurately identifying the problem.
Martha: I think what I bring to the planning process is asking questions. I bring what the research evidence says about the particular topic to these discussions along with implication for practice. My questions are based both in the evidence, and on an evolving understanding about what is important to NH. Exploring the relevance (or not) of current research with Suzanne helps me to keep up to date with what is current in nursing health services. The discussions with her always spark ideas for me about how research and educational practices can be more responsive to practice.
Suzanne: I find that Martha brings a different perspective than I often get within the Health Authority. She asks questions that help me to think more broadly about what I’m dealing with in my everyday world. Over time, we’ve discovered that this back and forth discussion helps us to come up with good definitions of problems and workable solutions for both practice and education issues, many of which have led us to ongoing system changes in the Health Authority and at the University.
Martha: Partnerships are a way to bring evidence to practice, to develop relevant and responsive nursing education and to create nursing research projects that can make a difference to patients and nurses. So how can they start?
Suzanne: Pick up the phone and offer to meet for lunch (or breakfast)…. Eventually, the lunches will have an agenda and you will find yourself planning and doing things together. The relationships will build over time. It is when we get to know and trust each other that we begin to plan together. We have found that two minds are so much better than one!
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Suzanne Johnston
Vice President Clinical Programs & CNO
Northern Health
Martha MacLeod
Professor and Chair
School of Nursing
University of Northern British Columbia
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