Partnership Pentagram Plus
To create socially-accountable health system change, RCCbc uses an adapted “Partnership Pentagram” model, which was originally developed by Charles Boelen in 2000 for the World Health Organization. The Partnership Pentagram has become the foundational model accepted by all medical schools in Canada as a framework for socially-accountable health education. Based on the acceptability of this model in the academic and medical professions, RCCbc adapted the Partnership Pentagram to illustrate the learning community and how partnership groups will work together to influence changes in healthcare for rural, remote and First Nations communities.
Traditionally the Partnership Pentagram consists of partners within five categories: Health administrators, policy-makers, academia, communities and health professionals. For the purposes of RCCbc’s work, we have added a sixth partner, called “Linked Sectors”, to ensure non-profit organizations and industries have a voice within a supported structure.
RCCbc’s adapted model is known as the “Partnership Pentagram Plus.”
The Partnership Pentagram Plus
Image: Rural Coordination Centre of BC
Partners in the Partnership Pentagram Plus
Image: Rural Coordination Centre of BC
Functions of the Partnership Pentagram Plus
Image: Rural Coordination Centre of BC
Appreciative Inquiry
RCCbc works within the “Appreciative Inquiry” (AI) model, a strengths-based, positive approach to leadership development and organizational change. Rather than focus on the negative aspects of problems within the health system to be overcome, AI starts from an evaluation of the existing strengths of a system to determine how we can build on this system, rather than tear it down and start from scratch.
RCCbc implements AI through an iterative and discursive approach interrogating the “four D” stages: Discover, Dream, Design, and Deliver. Where possible this model involves a “breathe in / breathe out” approach that allows peer groups within the Partnership Pentagram Plus model to bring the collaborative discussions back into their groups for further discussion and refinement, the results of which discussion inform further collaborative discussions.
