Synthesis Partnership

Crescent Community Health Center

Dubuque IA

Strategy   Identity   Capacity   Facilities

Crescent Community Health Center serves a primarily inner city population with health, wellness and dental care. As it approaches its tenth anniversary it commissioned us to lead a strategic planning process to address issues of growth, governance, management and fundraising. After a review of internal documents, interviews with staff, and a board/staff retreat, we identified as a set of critical issues including a more data-driven approach to identifying and meeting community needs, more effective tracking and reporting of quality measures and staff performance, better systems of internal communication, more transparent processes for budgeting, and new approaches to fundraising. We are now discussing the changes that will be required to pursue goals and strategies.

The Fishing Partnership Health Plan

Boston MA

Strategy   Identity   Capacity

The Fishing Partnership Health Plan (FPHP), formed to provide health insurance to fishing families in Massachusetts, had brought the fishing community from a 14% insurance rate up to the state average, and needed to make a transition to long-term sustainability. FPHP asked Synthesis Partnership for guidance in strategy, organizational development and business planning. Synthesis Partnership examined all aspects of the organization and made recommendations for plan policies (enrollment policy, premium adjustments, handling of reserves, and investment policy), governance (governance structure, board size, policy changes), operations (managed care, reinsurance, management structure, information resources, outreach, and communications) and new initiatives (expansion, additional services, and formation of a new, more effective and sustainable approach: a community-based health plan).

I’m Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation (i[2]y)

New York NY

Strategy   Identity   Capacity

I’m Too Young For This: Cancer Foundation (i[2]y) was a pioneering survivor-led cancer advocacy and support organization that eventually became stupidcancer.org. i[2]y asked Synthesis Partnership for assistance in developing its resources and infrastructure. We began by recrafting the mission statement, providing structure, policies and procedures to i[2]y’s fledgling board and volunteer organization and management consulting to the executive director, guided strategic and business planning, and worked with a fundraising consultant on grant proposals.

Women & Infants’ Hospital

Providence RI

Strategy   Identity   Capacity   Facilities

The hospital administration asked Synthesis Partnership to examine the full range of facilities issues, and to offer a strategy and prioritized agenda for addressing them in the context of the mission of the hospital, the vision of the leaders of the institution and its individual units, and the dictates of sound business principles. Synthesis Partnership explored Women & Infants’ facilities, strategic objectives, organizational structure, operating procedures, and capital project planning and budgeting processes to identify key issues and opportunities. We suggested development of clear, detailed facilities standards and guidelines both to reduce costs and to reinforce identity and values through higher quality and greater consistency in the design of facilities. We defined a group of institutional core facilities (and suggested ways to concentrate scattered opportunistic rental sites) to create operational efficiencies, increased and ongoing flexibility, and new program options.

Our strategic facilities report indicated opportunities for saving time, raising quality and reducing costs through multi-year planning, and a variety of specific steps in project implementation, supplier acquisition and guidance, and annual review procedures. Based on our interpretations of the visions and values of hospital leaders, we recommended developing the patient-centered notion of the garden (or healing garden) as the underlying metaphor for the hospital (as distinct from the currently implied technological metaphor of a machine for curing). This way of thinking about the hospital captured the imagination of a broad spectrum of constituents, from doctors to administrators to patients. It has come to serve as a catalyst and a common reference point for a wide range of identity- and values-based explorations throughout the institution. In order to realize the maximum benefits from our observations, the hospital subsequently retained Synthesis Partnership to assist in the early stages of conceptualization, programming, budgeting and architect selection for several inpatient and outpatient facilities projects.

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