‘Tis the season of strategic planning!

We’ve been hinting at it for a while now. And we’re excited the time is finally here: we’re doing strategic planning. The Coalition will be six years old this May and now has more than 125 Massachusetts-based member organizations. As ever, we’re all committed to ensuring that everyone gets health care that supports what matters most, especially in the face of serious illness. But a lot has changed. We’ve learned new things, expanded our relationships, asked new questions, and looked for new ways to increase our impact.

The Coalition's research as highlighted new ideas and opportunities for improving serious illness care using the powerful lens of an equity-first approach. One big takeaway is that we have to focus on health system change to truly improve outcomes. We must think differently about accountability and expand and elevate patient and caregiver voices in everything from their treatment plans to the design of quality improvement research. We have to think differently about the intersection of community and health care. The common themes from our research are about recognizing the fundamental power dynamics and imbalances between patients, caregivers, and the health care system, and working in structural and systematic ways to rebalance them.

This is why we’re excited to announce that the Coalition will be engaging in strategic planning with the help of the Tammy Dowley-Blackman Group. Experienced strategic planning professionals with deep knowledge of health care in Massachusetts, Tammy and her team will spend the next several months working with us to crisply articulate where the Coalition is headed.

Of course, we can’t do any of this without you! There will be multiple ways to engage with us in the work, so stay tuned as we go on this journey.