Keeping Things Moving: The Role of the Partnership Manager and Bridge-Builder
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This document discusses the role of partnership managers and their importance in facilitating population health partnerships. It provides examples of partnership managers' work with homeless youth and special needs children in Oregon. The goals of evaluating partnership managers are to understand how they foster partnerships, impact community health, and influence stakeholders. Two keys to partnership success are highlighted: partnership managers and developmental evaluators/coaches. The document outlines the roles, skills, and training needed for partnership managers to do their complex work, such as using frameworks for theory of change, adaptive action, generative listening, and spiral dynamics. Contact information is provided to learn more.
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Keeping Things Moving: The Role of the Partnership Manager and Bridge-Builder
- 1. Keeping Things Moving: The Role of the Partnership Manager and Bridge-Builder Presenter: Jennifer Pratt, Adagio Consulting. 2017.
- 3. The Case for Partnership Managers If population health partnerships are worth doing, isn’t it worth having at least one person in the entire system who wakes up every morning thinking about them?
- 4. Oregon Experience Homeless Youth • High, deferred need • Poor health habits • Hard to reach • High-utilizers of the near future Special Needs Kids • Specialized health needs • High cost care • Strong, passionate stakeholders • Sense of urgency
- 5. Evaluation Goals PROCESS GOALS To understand how… • Partnership Manager fosters partnerships and impacts community health • stakeholders’ thinking evolves as a result of Partnership Manager OUTCOMES GOALS To assess… • How Partnership Manager role contributes to o reduction in costs o improvement in patient experience o the potential for improvement in health outcomes • benchmark measures through specific interventions • changes in way “health neighborhood” interacts • changes in recognition of role of social determinants of health or changes in addressing them
- 6. Evaluation Team Spotlights Two Keys to Partnership Success 1. Partnership Managers 2. Developmental Evaluator/Coach
- 7. Worker Bee Cross Pollinator Data Collection and Analysis Bridge Builder Organized Follow Through Key Roles and Skills of Partnership Managers Diplomatic Politically Savvy Systems Thinker Communicator Barrier Breaker
- 8. Training for a Complex Job: Frameworks, Tools and Mindsets Examples of Training Modules to Support Success 1. Theory of Change – Facilitates rigorous planning of complex initiatives, evaluation of appropriate outcomes, understanding why efforts work or not. 2. Adaptive Action – Applies insight from complexity science to help navigate and manage the dynamics of partnering. 3. Generative Listening – Essential for multi-stakeholder partnerships, An uncommon and highly effective means of communication. 4. Spiral Dynamics© – Supports analysis of stages of development of partnerships. Note: See slide #13 for references
- 9. An Essential Role: Developmental Evaluator and Coach • On-going training and coaching • Evaluative thinking and methodology • Critical and creative thinking brought to problem-solving • External perspective • Melds strategy, evaluation, and impact • Boosts “Theory of Change” impact • Supports appropriate action • Says what needs saying
- 10. Health Instigator (or Partnership Manager) Toolkit
- 12. Presenter Contact Information Jennifer Pratt, MCP Adagio Consulting adagiopdx@gmail.com 503.703.9010
- 13. Frameworks and Tools Referenced on Slide #8, Credited to: • Theory of Change – Broadly employed tool for social change efforts • Adaptive Action – Glenda Eoyang, Human Systems Dynamics Institute • Generative Listening – Otto Scharmer, MIT • Spiral Dynamics© – Jennifer Pratt, Adagio Consulting For additional information on these frameworks and tools, see the Health Instigator Toolkit or contact Adagio Consulting at adagiopdx@gmail.com
Editor's Notes
- Introduction to Presenter: Jennifer Pratt, Portland OR Masters degree in Community Planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Community Planning Working on community health issues for almost 30 years. In partnership with public health and primary care, networks of hospitals, and coalitions of all of these. Also non-profits, jails, grocery clerks and hairdressers – anyone to help the cause. Serves as a facilitator, coach, evaluator, and social entrepreneur. Today, sharing one of these innovations undertaken while part of the Oregon Primary Care Association–development of a critical community health role that supports and catalyzes population health partnerships – the Partner Manager and Bridge Builder – or what was called in that initiative: the Health Instigator (Initiative: “It Takes a Neighborhood).
- Why a Partnership Manager is needed? Five years ago, no mindspace nor space on plates of clinicians and their teams to address the social determinants of health. Also more focus on individuals at that time. A need to work on a systems level as well. So, KaiserPermanente Northwest (KPNW) invested in a role that could bridge primary care and critical but silo’d work being done in the community (Public Health, non-profit, for-profit, and other governmental entities). They supported, not an expansion of an existing position, but a full-time individual whose sole job it was to weave a network across the community around a specific high-need population, help that network come to agreements around goals and strategy, facilitate measurement and meetings, and creatively drive towards impact. Knew clinicians and Public Health wanted to partner for population health needs, but initial efforts were stalling and petering out because they were being done on the edge of everyone’s already full plates. KPNW invested in the notion that -- if community health partnerships are worth doing, it is worth having at least one person in the entire system who focuses on them. Invested for success: Must be full-time Must be placed in a neutral position in the community (not belonging to – nor appearing to belong to – one organization, but to the whole partnership). Must have the array of skill necessary to facilitate partnership efforts. Must be supported with training.
- KPNW, further, wanted to know the impact of their investment, so they also funded a deeper evaluation than usual. Findings were affirming and enlightening. In the 1.5 years the initiative had to really do the work (after getting the rest of the project standing)… some very exciting successes. Will share the evaluation goals soon, but want to ground you in two of our experiences. These concretely illustrate successes and how important the role of Partnership Manager was in achieving them. Many community health initiatives start with a disease. We chose to organize around sub-populations who were high need and high costs to the system. This didn’t preclude a focus on diseases within the subpopulation, but it also created: a focus on health equities, cost, and allowed for immediate access to a natural network of passionate people with whom to organize, write grants, and take action. Stories… (see Toolkit for details)
- In assessing impact, evaluation team found two factors that stood out: The presence of this full-time role AND… The active, on-going participation of a Developmental Evaluator and Coach, supporting Partnership Managers Now – Will share a more granular understanding of these roles based on the findings, starting with: What does it take for a Partnership Manager to foster partnerships, set the stage for improvements in health outcomes, help reduce costs, and enhance patient experiences? There were also many learnings on partnershipping, itself – such as the roles of urgency and money – but that’s for another conversation…
- Role and Skills of the Community Partnership Manager It’s not about juggling all of these roles, it’s about embodying them all. Review slide. Note: Breaking Barriers – See “Four-Corner Framework” in Health Instigator Toolkit: Barriers -- Relationships Structures Processes Service Gaps These are some of the most critical roles and skills. For a broader outline of skills and abilities, see Addendum #1 (Job Description) in Health Instigator Toolkit. Partnership Managers should come to the job already with foundational skills, experience, and aptitudes This is not an entry-level position! Partners should wait to hire the right person. It took one site 4 months to find the right fit – but it WAS the right fit. Training in additional frameworks, tools, and mindsets can significantly enhance what Partnership Managers already bring to the table. In fact, one of the aptitudes they should bring with them is interest in continuous learning and improvement – both process improvement and personal growth.
- Training: Frameworks, Tools, and Mindsets Partnership Management is an art, but science – or tested theories and approaches need to be part of Manager’s paint set. Partnership Management is complex – that is, it is beyond simply being complicated. When something is complicated, you can plan it out and carry-through, step by step. When the context is unknowable, as is population health improvement, a different sort of approach and toolset is required. This understanding comes out of complexity theory – a well-studied science. Insights and frameworks from complexity science is one of the training modules we offered Partnership Managers. Among others, (see slide) these are the kinds of frameworks and tools explored in trainings and workshops. Jump-start training – Introduce toolkit, begin practicing leadership skill of self-reflection, start to develop theory of change for their initiative. Most effective, however, is on-going, just-in-time training and practice. This is where the Developmental Evaluator and Coach comes in.
- Developmental Evaluator and Coach Remember - evaluation team found that there were two reasons for results experienced in such short time. Just spotlighed one - full-time Partnership Manager and Bridge-Builder. Second one - Developmental Evaluator and Coach, who supports Partnership Managers. This role was unexpectedly powerful and essential. Our Managers went so far as to say they didn’t think they could have accomplished what they did without the support and insights of the Developmental Evaluator. There were too many differing cultures and expectations at the table, big personalities, large objectives and a continuously changing environment. What does a Developmental Evaluator (DE) offer? See slide - Helped Partnership Managers to remain clear-eyed, courageous, and on track. Developmental Evaluator must also come with breadth of knowledge and skill: Critical thinking, measurement and evaluation, creativity, listening, reflective questioning, Complexity Theory, training, giving feedback. Developmental Evaluation draws from traditional evaluation (in fact, the mind behind it is a past President of the American Evaluation Society) but DE recognizes that social change requires a different touch. Social change requires innovative and adaptive development in complex, dynamic environments. This does NOT mean that more traditional evaluation methodologies could not also be applied. But, they offer a different outcome than does Developmental Evaluation. (See Addendum #12 for more on Developmental Evaluation)
- What is the Health Instigator Toolkit? A collection of tools, frameworks, and our learnings around what it took us to successfully support population partnerships. There are many other guides and toolkits. There are many other frameworks and tools to draw on. Many are excellent resources that I draw on as well, such as the County Health Rankings and Roadmaps and Public Health Foundation’s Chief Health Strategist framework. Toolkit – Is our collection of core wisdom. It is short and intended to be an easy read -- so it will be read! Doesn’t have it all. But, my hope - it offers a powerful jump-start to anyone undertaking population partnerships. Closing: Exciting results and findings, and… more research needed – role of money, costs and benefits of focusing on a disease vs a sub-population, etc. For a copy of the Health Instigator Toolkit… contact Jennifer Pratt (information at end of PowerPt presentation)
- Thoughts? Questions? Let’s compare notes!