Samaritan Healthcare | Values

Located in Moses Lake, Washington and providing healthcare to the Columbia Basin region.

Samaritan asked Strateligent for help rediscovering their values. We guided input sessions with Samaritan employees, leadership, medical staff, and community members, unearthing who they are, what they value, and what they hope to (and can) achieve.

Leading the discussion with probing questions allowed us to elicit authentic responses—and we developed an interactive model for participants to share their answers and vote on their peers’ responses.

We listened to everyone from front-line receptionists to doctors to elected officials and business leaders tell us what it means to be Samaritan and have Samaritan Healthcare in their community. As our sessions concluded, the Samaritan values were clear Listen. Love. Respect. Excel. Innovate.

After being identified, the task was to share the values with the entire organization. We created an internal values brochure that helps recognize values in action, we developed hand symbols for each value, and we choreographed a dance to get employees excited and energized about who they are.

At the end of our four days of input sessions, we succeeded in helping Samaritan Healthcare see that living and working by their values and recognizing employees for doing that will lead to a culture of excellence (and makes for a great place to work).

“Our values are the heartbeat of everything we do—they are used in everything from job descriptions and onboarding materials to social media and patient interactions. And Strateligent not only helped us define those, but they did it by making us part of the process. They aren’t a typical agency that would just put us in a generalized healthcare box and say ‘This is what you are. This is what you believe. This is what you feel.’” —Gretchen Youngren, Samaritan Healthcare, executive director of development and communications.