Over the Summer 2018, we had the opportunity to engage coalition representatives and stakeholders across the 15 counties of our new Western Washington service area to learn more about their coalitions, the health and medical structures in each county and to help us identify best practices, gaps and priorities. These inventories have been essential to helping us get to know our partners and inform our next steps.
The Western Washington Healthcare Coalition Inventory Report has been distributed to our coalition partners this month and is available here .
Here are just a few highlights of some of our key learnings:
It’s important to keep a strong local focus. Communities expect the Network to maintain and build local relationships between providers and response agencies.
Connecting with experts and partners outside the region is important, too. Meeting the needs of local communities is essential, but so is looking outside local boundaries for best practices.
Not all sectors are as engaged as they should be in preparedness and response. Every region has a mix of strong and weak partnerships, and there’s a strong desire to have help in engaging others in the work. In some cases, long-term care providers are not at the table, but it could just as easily be dialysis centers or surgical centers.
The report helps us shape the focus of District Coordination meetings in all four of the Network’s districts, promoting collaboration on health and medical preparedness throughout our communities. We look forward to our work together as we move ahead on our shared priorities. For questions or more information about the county inventories, contact (Susan Pelaez or Rebecca Lis)