We don’t say this lightly: We’re changing the world
Cooperative Healthtech is a revolution.
Our goal is bigger than providing the best talent in Epic consulting for the best rate to healthcare organizations. Our goal is to seize the means of production—to give Epic consultants a place to work and make a living without exploiting their labor. Here, you don’t have to wish you could be an owner or have responsibility but not authority of an owner; you are an owner.
The initial impetus for creating a worker-owned coop was sparked by a conversation between two activists in Memphis, TN, discussing how to improve life for average people in the United States. When faced with idealism and concepts from various thinkers about how to create a better world, one stated, “All of that’s fine, but until you can show people that it improves their life financially, no one’s going to do it.”
Several years and several conversations later, we got the right group of folks together to bring about change. We created a Cooperative Healthtech to exist within the confines of American capitalism while also being separate—we created a place where the rewards of our labor are shared equitably amongst the workers, not used to make wealthy investors wealthier.
In growing from initial revolutionary ideals to an actual fledgling business, we are guided by the seven cooperative principles:
- Voluntary and Open Membership
- Democratic Member Control
- Members’ Economic Participation
- Autonomy and Independence
- Education, Training, and Information
- Cooperation Among Cooperatives
- Concern for Community
We chose Sociocracy as our governing model to help with democratic member control and autonomy and independence. We’ll talk more about how the seven cooperative principles affect our growth and direction and how we implemented Sociocracy—and how it continues to evolve—in future posts. In the meantime, we hope you’ll take a minute to look at the links, and that these ideas will spark you into joining our revolution!