The Turning Point partnerships came together for their first official gathering in New Orleans, Louisiana on January 30, 1998. Representatives from the 14 statewide and 41 local-level partnerships had much to share as they launch, together, efforts to transform and strengthen the public health system in their respective states and communities.

Discussions in New Orleans underscored that the Turning Point grantees themselves are the initiative's best resource. Participants recommended a number of approaches for their colleagues in areas such as: building coalitions, devising outcomes and measurements, and developing new resources and sustainable funding. The following are some highlights from those discussions.

Recommendations for expanding a coalition

• Develop a broad-based public health language that facilitates interdisciplinary, interprofessional communication.
  

• Develop tailored, innovative strategies for increasing participation in coalition decision-making while maintaining a manageable, effective process.
  

• Identify both the level of commitment that partners can afford (financial as well as human resources) and their areas of interest and expertise in order to match them with appropriate roles.
  

• Market public health in terms of economics and workforce issues to engage the business community and other non-traditional public health partners.

Approaches to measuring systems change

• Clarify how systems change measures differ from measures for categorical public health programs.
  

• Build flexibility into evaluation efforts to accommodate emerging public health issues, coalition growth, and evolution of process, objectives, and course of action.
  

Approaches to developing new resources and sustainable funding

• Request formal identification by new coalition partners of their resource commitments.
  

• Critically examine, from a public policy standpoint, governmental funding streams and the commitment of financial resources being made through relevant public sector organizations to public health endeavors.
  

• Consider carefully the appropriateness and benefits of creating a non-profit organization to manage coalition resources and develop sustainable funding.
  

Clearly, the New Orleans discussions were just the beginning. Future national meetings, the next of which will be held in March, will provide additional opportunities to capture the collective wisdom of the Turning Point partnerships. More importantly, participating coalitions, along with other states and communities throughout the country which host similar public health planning processes, hope to develop a new shared knowledge of how to move public health systems into the next millennium.