Collaboration yields progress for Sarasota's uninsured and underinsured

A year after Sarasota's three biggest providers of care for the uninsured and underinsured started collaborating with support from The Patterson Foundation, there's significant progress to report -- progress that illustrates even baby steps are big wins for patients and providers in an industry that is evolving by the minute.

Although they were meeting informally for years, executive leaders from Sarasota Memorial Health Care System, Senior Friendship Centers and the Sarasota County Health Department did something pretty rare for people with big organizations to run: they decided to commit to working together on a regular basis and committed to provide people power (in the form of key staff members) to organize work groups to innovate the system of care for uninsured and underinsured individuals.

After a year of working together, the results include building technology infrastructure for Senior Friendship Centers that will aid in health information sharing and communication among providers as well as creating a standardized eligibility requirement for patients across the system.

What was The Patterson Foundation's role in this effort? We recognize it's very difficult for organizations to tackle a collaboration such as this without outside support. We supported this platform of collaboration by providing a consultant to facilitate the process. We also added value through human capital: the expertise of our senior consultant, Michael Corley, and that of our strategic communications team to lead the communications workgroup.

Collaborating - especially around something so complex - is never easy but it demonstrates that in our community progress is possible.