Tag Archives: Lab

Momentum in Minneapolis: A Report from the Latest Lab

By Eva Starrak

On a crisp and beautiful day in early October, roughly thirty people gathered to attend the seventh – and last – Flip the Clinic Lab in Minneapolis, MN. The venue, and backdrop of the Minneapolis skyline tinged with a hint of autumn, could not have been more inspiring to those in attendance. As participants filtered into the sun filled room, a few entering as an assembled group, but many attending solo, they were encouraged to share their morning coffee with an unfamiliar face. As I drifted around the room, I caught bits and pieces of conversations popping up between these new acquaintances. It became clear quickly that a theme was already emerging: a great sense of care for the Minneapolis community among the participants, who included doctors, nurses, students, educators, patients, and local business stakeholders. Read more

Flip Ideas on the Road to Minneapolis

By Flip the Clinic

We’re mega excited to be heading to Minneapolis later this week. It’s always such a powerful experience for us as organizers to observe how each community surfaces their greatest needs and then works through their Flip ideas to address them. In fact, about mid-way through the day, Lab groups have more raw ideas than can reasonably be developed in an 8-hour period. So as we anticipate our Lab in Minneapolis, let’s look back at Princeton and Philadelphia. Before the groups decided which ideas to pour their energy into, there was a deluge of inspiring insights. Here’s a peek. Read more

Three Labs and Many Moments of Inspiration

By Flip the Clinic

Flip the Clinic threw three—count ‘em three—events the week of September 7th. On Tuesday, we brainstormed opportunities for change in New Jersey at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. On Wednesday, we held an all-day Lab at with participants at the D&R Greenway Land Trust in Princeton. And on Thursday, we set up shop in the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.

There are a dozen incredible stories to share—and we plan to roll them over the next few weeks, stay tuned!—but I’d like to draw attention to a small but important moment of Flipped perspective, one of many revelations that occurs as a result of the Lab process. It started with a walk. Read more

Sparking a Collaborative Community in Flip the Clinic Labs

By Andrea Ducas

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Andrea Ducas explains what she expected—and how she was surprised—by attending a Flip the Clinic Lab.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect walking into our Durham Flip the Clinic event. I was anxious to see the kinds of “Flips” the group developed. What would they tell me about health care priorities in the research triangle? What might stand out as something I could dig deeper into or bring back to my colleagues? I was anxious to see who FTC brought to the table, and to walk away with a better understanding of the “secret sauce” behind a program that I’m not in the weeds of day-to-day. And I was also pretty anxious to get over my cold.

I’m happy to report that I got a lot more than I bargained for—on all fronts (sorry again for the gift of my germs, Whitney!). I’ll cut to the chase and say I did get some sense of Durham’s health care priorities and it was certainly informative to meet the folks around the table…but it was the answer to my secret sauce question that was most intriguing.

Flip the Clinic is all about the community it’s building. I heard more than once, in a town where divisions run deep based on shades of blue, that ‘despite working on X for 15-20 years, this is the first time I’m meeting someone with my counterpoint job from Y health system to try to solve the same problem.’ Another common refrain from the innovators in the room? ‘I thought I was alone in this, but now I see there’s an entire community out there! And I’m so glad I’m in it now!’ The energy around sharing, collaboration, and camaraderie was palpable.

I realized at the meeting that the beauty of Flip the Clinic is less about the “Flips” (is that blasphemy?) and more about its capacity to bring like-minded health care disruptors together to problem-solve. To really lean on and learn from one another in the pursuit of a better clinical experience. To stop ‘beating the joy out of practice‘ and ‘bring some joy and optimism back into medicine.’ To just ‘do things differently.’ And in the case of some of the in-person convenings we’re hosting, to do so with the great luxury of dedicated time.

The Flips proposed were certainly interesting—they touched on topics like payment reform, better data flows, and addressing non-clinical health determinants—but in the end they served mostly as a way to surface shared interest and pinch-points to help clear a path forward. As symbols for what to address to drive toward true culture change in health care. I left genuinely excited to see what’s next for Durham, and the potential for the ideas—but especially collaborative community—sparked there to start something special.