Key Takeaways
- There was an immediate sense of synergy among the fellows. They arrived with different experiences, responsibilities, perspectives, and corners of the state, but a common interest in improving the health and well-being of Louisiana.
- The willingness of the fellows to be both teachers and students. These are accomplished leaders with significant expertise in their own fields. Yet throughout the session, there was a genuine curiosity about what others are doing, what is working, and where there are opportunities to collaborate.
- The first session also validated one of the central ideas behind the Health Fellows program: Louisiana does not necessarily need more people working on health. It needs more people working together on health.
The first-ever session of the Leadership Louisiana Health Fellows program was designed to give participants a closer look at the people, institutions and systems shaping health care in Louisiana. What emerged over three days in Baton Rouge was something just as important: a clear demonstration of what can happen when leaders from across the health ecosystem have the opportunity to learn together.
The strength of Leadership Louisiana has always been its ability to bring together accomplished leaders from different sectors and regions to learn from one another while developing a broader understanding of our state. The Health Fellows program extends that tradition by focusing on one of Louisiana’s most significant opportunities for improvement.
The inaugural Health Fellows class brings together leaders from health care, business, higher education, public policy, philanthropy and community organizations. That cross-sector approach is intentional. Louisiana’s health challenges are too complex to be addressed by any one institution, profession or sector alone.
The Baton Rouge session made that point clear.
The power of a shared purpose
There was an immediate sense of synergy among the fellows. They arrived with different experiences, responsibilities, perspectives, and corners of the state, but a common interest in improving the health and well-being of Louisiana.
That shared purpose created a different kind of conversation. Fellows were not simply learning from the speakers and institutions they visited; they were learning from one another.
Louisiana’s Department of Health Secretary Bruce Greenstein opened the first session in a wide-ranging conversation about the state of health in Louisiana, and concluded with remarks from the state’s Surgeon General Dr. Evelyn Griffin. As bookends to the first class, these two framed the importance that speakers felt about this impressive cohort. The fellows also visited Pennington Biomedical Research Center to learn about research with global impact, explored health research, education and innovation at LSU, and examined the intersection of athletics and health. They heard from Southern University about the #1 rated Nursing Program in the United States [https://nurse.org/articles/best-of-nursing-awards/] that is preparing a new generation of health professionals. They discussed the business and economics of health care with a Tulane professor.
A willingness to share — and to learn
Perhaps one of the most encouraging takeaways was the willingness of the fellows to be both teachers and students.
These are accomplished leaders with significant expertise in their own fields. Yet throughout the session, there was a genuine curiosity about what others are doing, what is working, and where there are opportunities to collaborate.
That matters.
Louisiana has no shortage of people working hard to improve health outcomes. The state has nationally recognized research institutions, health systems, universities, public agencies, workforce programs, community organizations and innovative businesses. But expertise can become isolated when people remain within their own organizations or sectors.
The Health Fellows experience is designed to break down some of those walls.
Connecting the pieces
The first session also validated one of the central ideas behind the Health Fellows program: Louisiana does not necessarily need more people working on health. It needs more people working together on health.
Every fellow already has a piece of the picture. The hospital leader sees one part. The researcher sees another. The public health professional, business leader, educator, policymaker and community leader each bring a different perspective.
The opportunity is to connect those pieces.
From the beginning, our vision was to create a program that mirrors the excellence and impact of Leadership Louisiana while taking a comprehensive look at the many factors that influence health outcomes. By putting these leaders in the same room—and then taking them into the institutions where the work is actually happening—the program creates the opportunity to see how seemingly separate parts of Louisiana’s health system intersect.