Track 1-1a
Management

Linking Worlds: The Challenge

The Cambridge Health Alliance serves the most culturally diverse patient population in the state of Massachusetts. My presentation will outline the evolution of our thinking and strategies in providing culturally competent healthcare.
  Our biggest developmental leap was taking a systems approach. We have been working on ways to institutionalize expectations, training, hiring, and performance appraisal systems, for example, into the formal organization structure. We are creating structures that guarantee a voice of bilingual/bicultural providers, staff and community members in planning and evaluating service delivery.
  My presentation will describe examples of this approach to the two-fold challenge of providing culturally competent healthcare and of working effectively within the multiracial, multicultural, multilingual employee community. It will outline the shift from generic multicultural awareness training as a change approach to strategies such as: the creation of a 1995 Alliance diversity strategic plan, annual departmental diversity plans, the inclusion of "diversity leadership" as one of 10 leadership competencies for which managers will be held accountable, dialogue about how diversity issues are embedded in the Alliance’s annual strategic priorities, a new approach to identify participants for language training and the development and piloting of cultural competencies. Reflections on lessons learned over the years and from the use of a self-assessment protocol developed by the National Public Health and Hospital Institute will be included in the presentation.

John G. O’Brien, MBA
President & Chief Executive Officer
Cambridge Health Alliance
1493 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: (617) 498-1001
Fax: (617) 498-1003
jobrien@challiance.org
jgillis@challiance.org

John O'Brien commenced his health care career at The Cambridge Hospital in 1976, worked his way through the ranks to become Chief Financial Officer in 1984 and finally to Chief Executive Officer in 1986. During Mr. O'Brien's tenure as CEO, The Cambridge Hospital has undergone dramatic transformation. Saddled with a $10 million deficit in 1987, the Hospital has reinvented itself by forming a unique partnership with its community, has restored its financial health and has become a model for building healthier communities. In 1991, The Cambridge Hospital achieved a break-even position and has been in the black ever since. In August 1993, Mr. O'Brien accepted on behalf of the staff of the Hospital, The Foster G. McGaw Prize at the American Hospital's Association annual convention in Orlando, Florida. In April 1994, Mr. O'Brien received the 1994 CEO Award from the American Hospital Association's Society for Healthcare Planning and Marketing.
  Currently, Mr. O’Brien serves as the Chief Executive Officer of a newly created public authority, comprised of two acute care hospitals (The Cambridge Hospital and Somerville Hospital), a skilled nursing facility (Neville Manor), the City of Cambridge Public Health Department and eleven neighborhood health centers.
  Mr. O'Brien is a graduate of Harvard College and received his Masters degree in Business Administration at Boston University. Mr. O’Brien is the Treasurer of the National Association of Public Hospitals, and is the Past-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Hospital Association.  NEXT >

essentials | models and practices | policy | legal issues | networking
table of contents | contact us | who we are

These pages are sponsored by the HHS Health Care Financing Administration.
Copyright © 1998, DiversityRx; www.diversityRx.org, Last update:January 20, 2000

 Diversity Rx is sponsored by: