By Jody Hoffer Gittell
Executive director of the Relational Coordination Research Collaborative
In the U.S. and around the world we are now moving from piece rate health care to a more comprehensive, systemic approach that addresses the underlying social determinants of health. Just three years ago those words—social determinants of health—sounded strange to me. Now they are familiar and evocative of a more promising, more integrated and holistic way of achieving health and human well-being.
This movement represents a paradigm shift. To pull it off in practice requires a greater attentiveness to relationships. It requires a redesign of key roles in our social system and how they relate to one another, and how the people within these roles relate to one another.
This new paradigm also involves changes in how the parts of the system relate to one another. There is a greater premium placed on going upstream to address rampant inequality and to invest in well-being at work and in the community. All areas of research and practice represented at the Heller School contribute a critical piece of this puzzle. We could support this paradigm shift by connecting our efforts more intentionally.
At the fifth annual RCRC Roundtable in New York City on Oct. 15-16, we will explore how the theory and practice of relational coordination—coordinating work through relationships of shared goals, shared knowledge and mutual respect—contribute to this paradigm shift. We will explore how relational coproduction by patients, clients, students and citizens and relational leadership by our leaders further contribute to this paradigm shift. For more information about the “Healthy and Thriving Workplaces and Communities - The Role of Relational Coordination” roundtable, visit the RCRC website.