NR 540 Week 5 Partnership Agreement Outline Example

Partnership Agreement Outline: Turning a Branch Librarian's Goodwill Into a Signed Arrangement Between the Health Department and the Library District, and the Same Treatment for the Syringe Program and Health Center

Student Name

College of Nursing, Chamberlain University

NR 540: Leading and Managing Population Health

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Partnership Agreement Outline: Turning a Branch Librarian's Goodwill Into a Signed Arrangement Between the Health Department and the Library District, and the Same Treatment for the Syringe Program and Health Center

Why an Agreement

The library will keep lending the hepatitis C program a room until the librarian who likes the program transfers. At present, testing sessions in the county's second town happen twice a month in a meeting room at the branch library because the branch librarian offered it, books it in a personal calendar and tells branch staff what to expect. Nothing is signed. The same informality runs through the program's other partnerships. The syringe services program employs the peer navigator with grant money under a purchase order, and the health center provides two protected clinics a week because its medical director agreed to it in a meeting.

Informal arrangements are fast to make and easy to lose. A review of collaborative partnerships for community health found that partnerships that produced lasting change tended to formalize roles, resources and decision processes over time (Roussos & Fawcett, 2000). This outline sets out the terms for a written agreement among the four organizations, with a separate short schedule for each partner's commitments. It will be reviewed by each organization's legal counsel before signature.

Written agreements have costs too. They take time to negotiate, and a partner asked to sign may hesitate over commitments it has been honoring informally for months. The outline is therefore deliberately short, with a common core and brief schedules, so that each organization's counsel can review it quickly and so that the conversation stays about the program rather than about legal language.

Parties and Purpose

The parties are the county health department, the syringe services program, the federally qualified health center and the library district. The purpose is to operate a hepatitis C test-and-treat program for adults in the county, especially people who inject drugs, moving people with active infection from testing to cure. CDC recommends hepatitis C screening for all adults at least once and regular testing for people with ongoing risk (Schillie et al., 2020); the agreement exists to make sure that screening in the county leads to treatment.

Terms Common to All Parties

Term. Two years from signature, aligned with the state grant, with a review at 18 months to decide on renewal.

Governance. A steering committee of one director-level member from each party, meeting monthly, deciding program policy by three of four votes. The health department's coordinator staffs the committee without a vote.

Data sharing. Each party shares with the health department, with the client's written consent, the information needed to follow a client through testing, confirmation, treatment and cure. The health department holds the shared tracking record and may report only de-identified totals outside the program. Each party remains responsible for its own records under the privacy laws that apply to it.

Named roles, not persons. Each party names the role, not the individual, responsible for its commitments, and notifies the steering committee within two weeks of any vacancy.

Withdrawal. A party may withdraw with 90 days' written notice. During the notice period, it will continue its commitments and help transfer clients or functions.

Disputes. Disagreements go first to the coordinator and the staff involved, then to the steering committee, then to the directors of the two parties concerned.

Schedule A: Library District

The library district will provide a meeting room at the second-town branch on the second and fourth Thursday of each month from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m., with a private area for testing and results. The room will be reserved a year ahead in the district's booking system under the program's name, not an individual librarian's. The district's facilities manager, not the branch librarian, is the named role responsible. Program staff will leave the room as found, follow the library's building rules and carry their own supplies and sharps container. The health department will provide the library with a short briefing for branch staff on what testing sessions involve, and will answer any concerns from library patrons. The library gives the room without charge, and program reports will say so and put a value on it.

Schedule B: Syringe Services Program

The syringe program will employ the peer navigator and two part-time rapid testers, provide testing at its drop-in center during all open hours, and participate in the biweekly case review. The health department will reimburse the syringe program quarterly for the navigator's salary and benefits and testing staff time, at the amounts in the grant budget. The syringe program's director is the named role responsible and will notify the committee of any staffing change.

Schedule C: Health Center

The health center will hold two reserved half-day clinics each week for people referred by the program, confirmatory RNA testing through its contract laboratory, prescription of direct-acting antiviral treatment and arrangement of medication coverage through insurance or manufacturer assistance. It will bill insurers for insured clients and invoice the health department for the sliding-fee gap for uninsured clients. The medical director is the named role responsible and will ensure a second nurse practitioner can cover clinics.

Schedule D: Health Department

The health department will hold the grant, employ the coordinator, maintain the shared tracking record, staff the steering committee, provide test kits and pay partners as scheduled. The disease control manager is the named role responsible.

What the Agreement Changes

The agreement does not change what the partners do today. It changes what happens when people change. The library's room survives the branch librarian's transfer. The navigator's post survives a resignation, because the syringe program must notify the committee and fill it. The health center's clinics survive a change of medical director. Scheirer and Dearing (2011) list the departure of a program's champion among the usual ways public health efforts wind down. The agreement is the program's answer: it moves commitments from champions to roles.

The agreement also changes the steering committee's work. Once commitments are written, the committee can review them each quarter against what actually happened: whether the library room was available on every scheduled Thursday, whether the navigator post was filled within two weeks of any vacancy, and whether the health center kept both protected clinics. Written terms make such reviews possible, and the reviews in turn show which terms need revising at the 18-month point.

References

Roussos, S. T., & Fawcett, S. B. (2000). A review of collaborative partnerships as a strategy for improving community health. Annual Review of Public Health, 21, 369-402. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.21.1.369

Scheirer, M. A., & Dearing, J. W. (2011). An agenda for research on the sustainability of public health programs. American Journal of Public Health, 101(11), 2059-2067. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2011.300193

Schillie, S., Wester, C., Osborne, M., Wesolowski, L., & Ryerson, A. B. (2020). CDC recommendations for hepatitis C screening among adults: United States, 2020. MMWR. Recommendations and Reports, 69(2), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.rr6902a1