Yesterday, the administrative teams from WMHS and Allegany College of Maryland met to discuss the ways in which both organizations could benefit from being located across the street from each other. Actually, that was one of the reasons why we located the new hospital on Willowbrook Road, to take advantage of the synergies of WMHS, ACM and Allegany County Health Dept. being adjacent to each other.
WMHS has always had a very good working relationship with the Health Dept. since we jointly sponsor or work together on a host of programs and have done so for many years. Aside from the didactical programs in the Allied Health arena, my serving on the college board and Dr. Bambara, ACM's President, serving on the WMHS Advisory Board, we weren't capturing all of the potential synergies between our organizations. Well, yesterday that all changed in that we had a great meeting.
After providing a perspective from the Community College and Health Care fields, we then began exchanging ideas as to how we could better work together. We came up with a host of potentials including: guidance on strategic planning from WMHS; establishing linkages between IT, Facilities and Support Operations; assistance from the college as we expand our Leadership Institute; greater access for students with behind the scenes tours, practicums, internships, work study programs and project work at WMHS; use of media services at ACM; better preparation of the soft skills and critical thinking for graduating students as they seek jobs at WMHS; student focus groups with WMHS leaders as to the quality of their WMHS experience; assistance with Employee Wellness support at ACM and the list goes on.
A great deal was accomplished at this meeting and we agreed to at least meet annually. At the VP level, they will begin having joint meetings with their dept. directors to establish relationships going forward. It took some time due to leadership turnover at ACM, but we finally got to take advantage of those well intended synergies.
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