Why we collaborate

By Susan E. Sedory Holzer, MA, CAE
SIR Executive Director 

Uber. Airbnb. Lending Club. Upcounsel. Quirky. Hale Health. Senscio. TaskRabbit. Bought By Many. Borrow My Doggy. 

What do all of these ventures have in common? They exist in what is known as the collaborative economy—the concept that, with the help of technology and information, individuals, corporations, nonprofits and even governments are being empowered to distribute, share and reuse the idling (or excess) capacity that exists in goods and services right now. Think eBay, but not just to reclaim that vintage lunchbox you remember from childhood—for housing, insurance, legal counsel and, yes, health care. 

Now, I’m a huge user of Uber and would have no problem letting someone else play with my husky to her heart’s content every day. And while I’m not ready to rent out my spare bedroom to any weary traveler, I can see why Time magazine named collaborative consumption one of the “10 Ideas that will change the world.” 

According to Rachel Botsman, a global thought leader on the power of collaboration, we are most likely to see these more accessible marketplaces and mobile workplaces disrupting traditional institutions that are fraught with complex experiences, broken trust, redundant intermediaries and limited success. (Read about Home Depot’s partnership with Uber for Christmas tree delivery and more in “Established companies, get ready for the collaborative economy.")

As you think of SIR, does anything about a collaborative economy seem familiar? For 41 years, SIR has been empowering IRs to distribute, share and reuse individual expert knowledge to learn from peers and benefit IR patients. We have excellent partners who bring new innovations to market. We’ve wrestled with how to collaborate with physician colleagues—who are in many cases are also competitors—knowing that, when our patients benefit, open collaboration enhances the specific skills and contributions that distinguish the practice of IR. 

But merely gathering with competitors or even like-minded organizations to share ideas and information does not constitute collaboration; there must be a larger, collective goal in mind—something everyone can point to and say, “We made a disruptive change and together we accomplished that.” 

So how is SIR helping IRs disrupt the status quo through collaboration? In his recent blog post, SIR President Alan H. Matsumoto, MD, FSIR, discusses stroke care and how patience, a commitment to evidence, and multidisciplinary collaboration teams have once again put IRs in the position of delivering a “profound and positive impact on stroke patients.” Learning opportunities in stroke care, once put on hold, will resume to address educational needs while also increasing our collaboration with other specialties. Who among you is not surprised by the rapidity and magnitude with which the tide turned as soon as the results of newer trials were published? This is the collaborative IR economy, disrupting old treatments for the benefit of countless patients and their families. 

You may also notice the icons for SIRcloud™ and SIR Connect. These two new services, launched over the past year, are specifically designed to empower you to distribute, share and reuse the intellectual capacity that exists in our IR community. Today, in SIRcloud, you can access more than 2,700 slide decks and presentations and 100 case studies derived from SIR activities and resources, as well as files uploaded from the IR community—extending the reach of trusted, shared content. You can also login to SIR Connect and join the nearly 400 active discussions in the Open Forum alone, on topics ranging from “Embolic material for thoracic duct” to ‘hiring a vascular surgeon” into an IR practice—a complicated collaboration topic if there ever was one. Every day, I’m impressed by the number of you sharing information and ideas openly, all in the spirit that collaboration makes IR (and IRs) stronger in their home communities and on behalf of their patients. 

Whether you believe that collaborative marketplaces could replace traditional industries, like hotels, or that microprenuers can slay giants just by making transactions less complex, there is no question that the trust and value within the IR community puts us in a good position to keep on empowering innovation and collaboration for the next 41 years, at least.

Want more on how share economy will impact medicine? Read an interesting blog I found by National Institute of Mental Health Director Tom Insel, MD.