I like to believe I bring insightful perspective when consulting with healthcare organizations and in my speaking, writing, social media and blogging activities. What I bring to the table is insight that spans all organizations. I see how different healthcare professionals approach similar problems, when they succeed and fail, and, with a little luck, can provide some thoughts as to why certain outcomes happen.

What I can’t bring to the table is the first-person perspective. I’m not the person in the hospital working to move that initiative forward. I’m not the one navigating the internal politics, receiving the angry phone calls from physicians, or selling the health system’s brand. It’s been almost 15 years since I’ve worked in a hospital and I’ve used up my war stories.

Fortunately, I work with a truly incredible group of healthcare organizations. The wisdom and depth of experience I find when talking with healthcare professionals is as valuable as the perspective I bring to the conversation. Likely more so.

That’s why I regularly co-present topics with our clients and engage with them when I write. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy going to so many conferences and tradeshows throughout the year.

I’ve recently been taking my conversations a step further. I’ve been putting a group of healthcare professionals in a room together, introducing a topic and then getting out of the way. These sessions are one part focus group, one part mentoring, and one part group therapy session. And they’re truly wonderful!

We held the first such session back in April at the Geonetric eHealth Symposium, our annual client event. We gathered the audience in peer groups with the thinking that the issues faced by smaller community hospitals and specialty centers often look different from those of large, complex health systems with many moving parts and a regional reach. To my surprise, this was not only a fascinating session for me to facilitate and watch, but also the most highly rated session of the symposium!

This week I get to do this again with a virtual twist. We’re holding our first Geonetric Forum. During these quarterly conference calls, our clients will again be divided into peer groups and will meet to share critical trends in healthcare and digital communications.

We all get tied up in our day-to-day challenges. Participation in this community of expertise is a wonderful way to take a step back and think strategically about the challenges we face. I’m very excited to be a part of the experience and to see what I’ll learn.

And who knows, maybe there will be a blog post in there somewhere.