Who is leading us to the national health care delivery system “Triple Aim promised land”? We are. But to get there, we need to shift our thinking on ways we can collaborate to provide the best health care delivery and positive outcomes.

Once viewed as a friendly means to gain a strategic and competitive advantage, collaboration is the means to effectively address transitioning a broken health care delivery system to that of a new and improved patient-centered care system of the future. If we can efficiently and affordably make that collaborative shift, health care will not be the predominant headline as one of the leading contributors to our nation’s economic debt crisis, as well as sky rocketing chronic health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension and blood pressure.

[See also: OHN's 12 best practices for health IT, part 1: Strategy and planning.]

Unfortunately, the reality is that few of us have knowledge or experience in how to implement and practice true collaboration. For many of us, the concept remains vague or inspirational at best. We want to do it, but we have no experience in how to do it, or at least one that benefits a national public and private industry (health care) remodel. As impassioned agents of health care, it’s in our nature to carry the weight and burden of this challenge on our shoulders, often asking “How can I make a difference or where do I start?”

The basic truth, often overlooked, is that it isn’t about you or “them” specifically, it’s about all of us learning to work collaboratively. If we pool our knowledge, resources and experience, we can develop a solution with unique perspectives and can address how to rebuild our systems to serve the common good together.

However, to do so in silos in a complex and ever-changing landscape will not allow for the time for “them” to develop the desired traditional, neat and formal national plan. Simply stated, there is no Moses coming to part the waters and show us the proverbial “promised land.” How to build and connect to the next generation of health care systems is up to us. All of us.

Where do we start? It starts with shifting our thinking from working as individuals in silos to a mindset open to planning and interacting with a national integrated health care system (that again, hasn’t been built yet). The axiom that we’re only as strong as our weakest link has never been more appropriate.

Each of us has a responsibility and a role to play to ensure that all providers and patient communities they serve have access to the best resources and care. Here are a few initial first steps recommended to support and expand upon your HIT collaboration efforts:

Support the Existing Federal and State Strategy & Momentum

First and foremost, center your collaboration efforts behind commonly shared goals that already have money and buy-in from the top. The first step is to embrace the first Health IT Best Practice area of having an HIT strategy or plan that serves a commonly shared community (state or federal) such as the Triple Aim. Having a clear strategy allows us to narrow the universe significantly in determining where, how and if we can collaborate. Work with your existing referral/affiliate partners on how to serve your community’s desires by outlining clear goals on the selection of new programs, processes and investments. For example:

• Reducing hospital visits by patients with chronic conditions;
• Maintaining or increasing The Joint Commission’s (TJC) measure for quality outcomes year over year reduce;
• Supporting each other in the successful selection and implementation of electronic medical records that are designed to connect to each other’s state health information exchange;
• Looking to recruit/train/retain a high quality workforce.

While investigating other best practices, come up with your community’s plan and then share that plan with surrounding communities as it’s being finalized to see how it supports statewide efforts. And from there – the hope is that the state will then reach across state lines to see how it can integrate and support other state efforts. In the end, we’ll hopefully have a national system that has addressed the diversity of our country’s populations and has built itself with the end in mind, an integrated national health care delivery system.