Collaborative Process and Practice Solutions promoting patient safety, healthcare quality, error prevention and non-adversarial out-of-court resolution of adverse medical events, professional and institutional errors & omissions matters.

ACT-Solutions' Collaborative Healthcare Dialogues Director, Kathy Clark, JD, PhD, MAM, will convene and facilitate on line and in-person dialogues, among health care stakeholders, including physicians, patients, patient advocates, plaintiffs' attorneys, hospital general counsel, risk managers, insurers, defendants' attorneys, medical boards and other regulators. A series of ACT-Soutions' online Collaborative Healthcare dialogues, the first lasting up to three days, will engage stakeholders from all over the U.S. to address collaborative practice and similar non-adversarial processes. Three one-day follow up dialogues with the same or an expanded group of participants will take place at approximate intervals of six months expanding these dialogues into other areas of concern in health care.

ACT-Solutions' Collaborative Healthcare dialogues will be produced and developed under contract with the non-profit education and research service organization, WestEd, and will utilitize WestEd Interactive's Web Dialogues facilities. WestEd is a regional education laboratory from US Dept of Ed formed under a Joint Powers agreement between CA, NV, UT, AZ, funded by Congress. WebEd Interactive resources include an array of digital and multi-media production and communication services that use the web to encourage collaboration among organizations and individuals. WebDialogues create targeted purposeful discussions among public agencies, policy-makers, subject experts, and citizens promoting the thoughtful exchange of ideas and information that supports well-informed decision-making. WebDialogues combine an easy-to-manage online environment with a proven process that enables organizations to conduct dialogues efficiently and independently. Web Dialogues will support our dialogues before, during and after, by sending invitations and reminders, co-facilitating dialogues, structured agendas, management and monitoring the dialogue, and provides daily summaries

Contracting with WestEd will permit ACT-Solutions Collaborative Healthcare Dialogues to conserve technical and financial resources, while benefitting from technology applications that will help us to accomplish more by working across multiple sites in an integrated manner.

Kathleen Clark, PhD, JD, MAM
Project Director, Collaborative Healthcare Dialogues™

A San Francisco Bay area attorney and mediator for twenty-two years, Kathleen Clark, earned a law degree from Golden Gate University School of Law, a PhD from Tilburg University, and a Masters Degree in Business Management from John F. Kennedy University. Her doctoral dissertation is entitled Bringing Dialogue and Collaborative Law to Health Care. She is founder and CEO of Servant Lawyership.

Kathy publishes, speaks, trains professionals, consults and coaches about the dialogue process, collaborative law, patient safety, disclosure, and appreciative inquiry. Her many articles on collaborative law, disclosure, dialogue, and appreciative inquiry appear in legal, insurance and other periodicals, including various American Bar Association journals, are available on her website. www.ServantLawyership.com.

Kathy convened the collaborative law symposium, Bringing Healing to Law and Medicine, in San Francisco in April, 2010. The event was co-sponsored by the American Bar Association sections of Dispute Resolution, Health Law and Torts, Trial and Insurance Practice. Kathy facilitates dialogues across the nation on medical errors and alternatives to medical malpractice litigation. Her work builds collaborations and alliances across professions and stakeholders, including patients, physicians, defendants' and plaintiffs' attorneys, insurers, other health care providers, hospitals, risk managers, patient safety professionals and other interested parties. Kathy is a member of The State Bar of California, the American Bar Association, The Global Collaborative Law Council, the Association for Conflict Resolution, and the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation.

She is an associate of The Taos Institute and a co-founder of Advanced Collaborative Team Solutions, Inc. Kathy serves as our Treasurer, as a member of the Executive Committee of the Board, and as Director of ACT-Solutions' Collaborative Healthcare Dialogue Project.

For more information, please contact ACT-Solutions Collaborative Healthcare Dialogues Project Director Kathleen Clark, k.clark@act-solutions.org or call 1.925.708.8227.