Leadership in Health Care
Psychology grad is making a mark in the community, providing
health care leadership.
Published in Insights A Sonoma State University Magazine Volume
VI, Number 1, Spring 1999
Theresa Richmond, a 1998 graduate in psychology, has been successfully applying the
skills and knowledge she gained from the psychology MA special-focus program in organization
development at SSU. As a human resources manager at the Queen of the Valley Hospital
in Napa, she is in charge of employment, employee relations, and organization development.
She currently directs the STAR project, a three-year initiative to improve human
resource management systems. STAR is an acronym for the four key improvement areas
of this program:
o Staffing and selection
o Training
o Assessing and managing performance, and
o Rewards and recognition
This initiative is geared to maintaining the hospitalís competitive effectiveness
in the health care area by providing continued professional development opportunities
for staff, increasing employee satisfaction, and recognizing and rewarding superior
employee performance.
Richmond is also continuing to follow the outcomes of a Future Search conference
she conducted in Napa over a year ago. Responding to a request by Terry Longoria,
director of Health and Human Services for Napa county, Richmond helped organize a
special conference for 170 participants from all relevant sectors of the community.
The conference brought together a remarkable consortium of stake-holder groups, including
child care, education, health care, transportation, employment, housing and utilities,
job training, local government, and churches.
The Future Search conference method has been used in many communities and organizations
around the world. For example, it has been used to work with difficult issues such
as regional water resource management, economic development, and sustainable timber
practices. In Napa County, the need was to plan for impending changes in welfare
regulations and funding at the state and federal levelsńchanges that threatened to
leave large numbers of people without support or shelter.
Richmond says that Saul Eisen, professor of psychology at SSU, provided training
and support for the Future Search project. "Saul actually walked us through
the entire process. And people had great things to say about SSUís organization development
program. People like Michael Doyle, who wrote the book How to Make Meetings Work.
My contact with Saul and Frank Siroky and the folks at SSU really opened many doors."
Over a three day period--about 16 hours--17 groups of stakeholders relating to the
welfare situation in Napa County searched for common ground in their perspectives,
developed a systemic understanding of the social trends and forces affecting the
welfare situation, and generated a shared vision of desirable futures for the county.
On the basis of this shared vision, they generated concrete action plans for addressing
the needs of welfare recipients and of the county community as a whole. Participants
were impressed with the kind of collaboration and creativity that emerged from the
process.
Theresa plans to continue her community involvement as well as her professional leadership
at Queen of the Valley Hospital. She will attend an advanced workshop on conference
and facilitation techniques sponsored by the hospital. She credits the rich learning
experience in SSUís Organization Development Program for the professional preparation
it provided her.