We are pleased to announce that Kathy  led a training (April 17, 2012) and a dialogue (April 18, 2012) at the Cork Resolution Center, Cork, Ireland on the use of collaborative law in medical negligence situations.  In attendance were attorneys, physicians, other healthcare professionals, insurers, hospital administrators, risk managers, and patients (including Margaret Murphy, patient advocate, who, tragically, lost her son to medical error).  The collaborative practice training and dialogue process are intended to introduce new, non-adversarial models for addressing medical error situations, to build community among these professions, and to further understanding of both the patient and physician's experience.

In July, 2011, we held our first webinar in a professional development series, developed for physicians, hospital administrators, risk managers, attorneys, and insurers, on the subject of the collaborative continuum, which includes informed patient choice, disclosure, patient-physician cooperation to promote healing and patient safety, and compensation, as appropriate.   Additional webinar dates will be announced soon.

Kathy was chosen by The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) to participate in the first Leadership Summit for Patient Activists and Partners in Quality and Safety, held on Sunday, December 5, 2010 at IHI, gathering 50 patient activists for a half-day formal session at the 22nd Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care in Orlando, FL.  to change the care dialogue.  This novel, invite-only event brought together patient activists from around the country to form a coalition with a shared agenda, which included examing the role of patients, families, and the public in health reform and imbedding patients and patient activists as integral ongoing partners in the work of IHI.

Civil Collaborative Law Symposium: Bringing Healing to Law and Medicine, April 7, 2010, San Francisco, CA, pre-conference program immediately before the ABA DR Conference

Kathy planned, convened and facilitated this day-long workshop on collaborative practices in healthcare.  Among the presenters were James Woods, his attorney, Mark Decof (by live video feed) and Sandy Coletta, CEO of Kent Hospital, Warwick, Rhode Island, all of whom spoke about the Woods' family's medical malpractice case against Kent Hospital after the death of Woods' brother, Michael, due to medical error.  Woods, Decof and Coletta spoke of the transformational settlement they reached after several years of adversarial, acrimonious litigation, agreeing to work collaboratively to bring the work of the newly-formed Michael J. Woods Institute to their Rhode Island community.

The Symposium created another opportunity for tremendous learning and community-building among the speakers and attendees, including physicians, nurses, insurers, attorneys, patients, patient advocates, and mental health professionals from the U.S., Australia, Croatia and Israel.