Systems Thinking Insights

Why don’t you all just talk to each other?!
2020 Virtual Summit on Ending Homelessness

October 28, 2020

The Michigan Campaign to End Homelessness offers a Summit on Ending Homelessness in the Fall of each year. For 80+ participants, we laid out the process we applied to better connect providers in physical/behavioral health, homelessness prevention and our neighbors at risk.

Along with our project partners from the, the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness, we presented the origin, process and findings of two overlapping initiatives in the intersection of Healthcare and Homelessness. The first is detailed on our site, the second focuses especially on youth in the Child Welfare, Behavioral Health and Juvenile Justice systems.

Only You Can Prevent PX Wildfires: Systems Thinking and the Patient Experience
Conference Presentation: Beryl Institute 2019

April 3-5 2019, Dallas TX

In 2017, the US Forest Service spent over $2.5 billion fighting fires. The fires that PX professionals fight every day are the outcome of decades of cultural undergrowth, providing ample fuel: siloed organizations, disconnected communication systems, unclear lines of authority, disagreement on shared measurements. The victims? Staff, patients, families. The answer: systems thinking. Using examples from frontline experiences, presenters shared stories of patient experience in flames, their underlying causes and the systems that have been designed to prevent them.

Tiffany Fortin, Senior Patient Experience Officer, Munson Healthcare
Sheila Moroney, Patient Experience Officer, Hennepin Healthcare
Mark VanderKlipp, Founding Partner, Connect_CX


Acumen Academy Systems Practice “Sherpa”

2020: MiSTEM Network

2019: Norte Safe Routes to School

2018: Advocates for Healthy Communities, Waste Stream Awareness

2017: Homeless Youth Initiative, Great Lakes Ecosystem Health

Certified six times as a Systems Practice practitioner, Mark VanderKlipp uses design thinking to help visualize "Wicked Problems" as he leads groups through a 12-week Systems Practice curriculum, then presents Systems Thinking concepts to groups of community and nonprofit leaders from across Northern Michigan at the end of each learning cohort.


Leadership Roundtable for Health Solutions

October 26 2018, Houghton MI

We were invited as guests to this roundtable discussion including leaders from across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula representing healthcare, insurance, education, government, philanthropy, social services, innovation centers and practitioners. This group has been meeting for three years - working together across geographic, competitive and disciplinary lines - to improve health outcomes in the U.P.; an excellent example of Collective Impact in action.

The discussion ranged from reducing hospital readmissions to creating a data-driven map of health and social services resources, from standardizing communications across EHRs to Advance Care Planning initiatives. Teams from this group of 20+ professionals work together to forward these initiatives throughout the year; the Roundtable takes place in October so that each team can report progress and receive feedback from the group.


Phygital Wayfinding: Building Brand and Culture, Online and Off
Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) 48th Annual Conference: Cultivating Integration

June 2013, San Diego CA 

A discussion highlighting the importance of physical and digital wayfinding tools and logic to the College and University community. Joint presentation with Mark VanderKlipp and client Kate Pepin from the University of Michigan - Dearborn featuring the UM-Dearborn wayfinding system. Encore presentation: also presented as a Webinar to SCUP membership in 2012


Phygital Wayfinding and Experience Mapping: New Ways of Looking at and Experiencing Downtown Environments
International Downtown Association 57th Annual Conference

October 2012, Charlotte NC

Our presentation focused on the integration of digital experiences as part of a comprehensive, city-wide branded experience. Joint presentation with Mark VanderKlipp and Rachel Downey, President, Guide Studio.