I recently had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Brine Hamilton, CHPA. Brine has been in the healthcare security industry for 12 years. He started as a frontline officer, and is now working as an Operations Manager. In addition to his professional accomplishments, he is also a Certified Healthcare Protection Administrator and a Member-at-large of the Board of Directors for the International Association for Healthcare Security and Safety (IAHSS). Recently, Brine launched The Healthcare Security Cast, a podcast for healthcare security professionals. Brine, like me, has the desire to build a collaborative space for the sharing of ideas and community with other healthcare security professionals.
Brine told me that his idea for starting the podcast was based around the desire to bring people together. The need for community within our profession is palpable, and the need for easily accessible and digestible resources is also a significant. Margaret Wheatley, an author and management consultant, has said: “there is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about.” She is right, but a community cannot discover what it cares about if there is no space within which ideas, problems and solutions can be discussed.
Experience has demonstrated the benefits of community for Brine, as he related to me that it is the people, networking, and friendships he has developed in and through his connection to IAHSS that has been the greatest benefit to him in his time there. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people within our industry that lack that connection to the larger community. For some, physical distance is the barrier, for some it is the lack of a space within which they feel comfortable to engage. But, without that engagement, without community, our isolation within our discipline leads us to atrophy and stagnation.
I would argue that it is through our interactions with others, through the sharing of ideas and best practices that we discover our own fuller potential for improvement. It is through the process of putting our ideas out there and listening to feedback that we make those ideas better. And in turn, it is through engaging the ideas of others, through providing feedback based on our own experience that we truly help out our peers as well as ourselves. Helen Keller said it best: “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” We each have the power to make one another better, and in turn we improve ourselves.
So, it is with that in mind that I congratulate Brine on starting The Healthcare Security Cast. I appreciate him for taking a step forward and reaching out into our community, and for working to build a space for the sharing of ideas and for the betterment of us all. If you haven’t checked out The Healthcare Security Cast yet, then please do so at the link below.
What do you think about our need for community? Do you see the benefits of mediums like this blog or Brine’s podcast as spaces in which we can have open conversations about issues within our profession? Where are you plugged into community? What has been your experience in building community, and the benefits of that community? Join the conversation in the comments below.
Great work Mike and Brine