Solution Centers
A way to work together
A Solution Center is a way for a group of people to think about a challenge they face together.
Solution Centers can be organized around a place, a topic, or a community of practice. For example, a Solution Center might exist in your town or it might be about something you care about, like Diabetes.
COMMUNITY ORGANIZED AROUND A PLACE
If it’s in your town, the challenge might be something like: “too much heat in the summer is destroying our community garden.” The group might explore ways that everyone in town could help.
ORGANIZED AROUND A CHRONIC CONDITION
If the solution center is about a chronic condition like Type 2 Diabetes, the community might organize around questions like “how do we help neighbors at our local food bank get enough to eat and manage their diabetes?” Or “how can I support my daughter in managing her diabetes?” Most questions involve both place and other conditions, so quite often, we need complex solutions at a local level.
Earlier in my career I worked for several years at Kaiser Permanente in a group called “Care Delivery Strategic Solutions”. I led strategic planning across 10 teams and engaged with 100+ leaders. I had the privilege of listening to their concerns and the solutions they imagined. One pattern emerged very clearly: solutions are complex; they involve multiple touchpoints on the patient journey, and they vary tremendously based on the context. I have created Solution Centers as a way for people to engage in that same level of thinking, but for themselves, their families and their communities. Solution Centers are meant to be less about place or topic, and more about effective ways of working together.
— Carmen Wiedenhoeft, Founder
Find or Create a Solution Center
These are plans for the network. No centers are open today.
Local ownership and paid work
The proposed model puts each center in the hands of the people who run it. The local team would own the business and manage its services. KISOP’s network would provide shared tools and operating support.
Shared support would help reduce the cost of getting started. We address barriers that can put ownership out of reach for people with limited savings or access to capital.
Local residents would help identify which services are needed. Centers could create paid work at different stages of working life, including for people returning after caregiving or changing careers. Artificial-intelligence systems would be optional tools in that work to help amplify the impact and accelerate progress, but never replacing the people in the community helping one another.
Getting to Yes
Are you tired of hearing “no”? Quite often you might have an amazing solution to a problem, but not be in a position to make that change real. As much as we might be told “be the change you want to see in the world”, the reality is that change is hard in complex systems. We help you get from “no” to “yes”.
Learning for Life
Learning is part of every center. For adults, that can mean job retraining and lifelong learning: a new trade, a new tool, or a new language, at any age. For young people, it can mean community engagement through apprenticeships: supervised work on the center’s own projects, where they learn to build their communities by building part of one.
Growing Leaders
Each leader will have their own methods based on their deep understanding of the needs of their community. We support those leaders. KISOP engages in leadership development at every age — from youth learning how to serve to seniors engaging with peers.
How do KISOP Solution Centers compare to clinics or hospitals?
Solution Centers look at the things that we can do outside a clinic or hospital. We look at the things we do at home, with our families, and in our communities.
We seek to be active partners with local clinics and hospitals, as they are vital aspects of any person’s health. However, we operate alongside the medical establishment looking across chronic conditions, diseases, particular towns or cities.
The rules around a Solution Center
A center works with people’s health information, with caregivers, and sometimes with children and vulnerable adults. The laws around that differ by state and change often. The Legal and Regulatory Advisory Group helps the community understand those rules as they evolve, and keeps the Legal & Regulatory Commons, a public body of knowledge, for people and for builders.
Funding for Solution Centers
Communities fund centers one area at a time. Business preparation and financing are proposed; this site does not offer a loan or a business opening yet.