Formal QI in Specific Areas

DCHS Public Health
In Progress
Impact Statement:
Three counties in central Oregon, Crook, Deschutes, and Jefferson, were faced with rates of only 60%–70% of 2-year-old children having received all recommended vaccinations. The counties used QI methods; elected to implement an evidence-based process, AFIX (Assessment, Feedback, Incentives,...
MCDPH
Completed
Impact Statement:
The Maricopa County Department of Public Health (MCDPH) SNAP-Ed (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program–Education) team used rapid-cycle PDSA to make the school lunch “plate waste” process more efficient and more accurate and updated it to cause the least disruption to the students and staff.
MCHD
Completed
Impact Statement:
Using a QI process, the Mercer County Health Department significantly increased the number of survey responses from its customers. This feedback is used to help identify areas for improvement and thus is an important part of the health department's strategy to apply QI to its operations.
DOH-Manatee
Completed
Impact Statement:
Implementing an improved process to collect customer feedback resulted in a staggering increase in customer satisfaction survey responses, from an average of 12 per month to more than 1,000 per month. The feedback will greatly enhance Manatee County Health Department’s (DOH-Manatee’s) performance...
Connecticut DPH
Completed
Impact Statement:
The Connecticut Department of Public Health (DPH) significantly reduced the number of steps needed to place student interns. By improving access to job descriptions and applications for preceptors and prospective interns, staff could more easily increase capacity to meet the community's health...
Completed
Impact Statement:
The Boston Public Health Commission worked across departmental areas to improve the invoice payment process for their vendors. Timely payment contributes to improved relationships with these partners to collectively meet the community's health needs.
KCHD
Completed
Impact Statement:
Kane County Health Department (KCHD) in Illinois increased staff knowledge of the Emergency Operations Plan (EOP), which improved timely response to emergencies and protection of county residents.
KHI
Completed
Impact Statement:
Kansas Health Institute (KHI) strengthened their ability to share information with clients by increasing the efficiency of its publication process and reducing staff stress associated with it.
Lake County Health Department
Completed
Impact Statement:
By using the Six Sigma DMAIC method, Lake County Health Department streamlined their billing process for the Dental Program. This change resulted in a significant decrease in lost revenue, from an average of $5,354 per quarter down to an average of $2,076. The quarterly losses decreased steadily...
DOH-Seminole
Completed
Impact Statement:
The Florida Department of Health in Seminole County (DOH-Seminole) improved the timeliness of filing Client Service Records (CSRs), positively affecting customer service and access to care.
TCPH
Completed
Impact Statement:
The Tarrant County Public Health (TCPH) Tuberculosis (TB) Division in Texas improved completion rates for latent TB infection (LTBI) treatment focusing on three targeted populations: homeless shelter residents, refugees, and people exposed to TB cases. Quality improvement of the process and a new...
HCHD
Completed
Impact Statement:
Harford County Health Department (HCHD) in Maryland increased the percentage of morbidity reports for chlamydia submitted by county health care providers, thus facilitating improved trend monitoring, ensuring proper treatment, and ultimately helping to reduce the spread of disease.
KCHD
Completed
Impact Statement:
Developing effective public health communications via social media is very much a work in progress. One critical success factor is the ability to converse with a broader audience and to create messages that allow interaction between the messenger and the audience. During the test phase of Kane...
FCHD
Completed
Impact Statement:
Franklin County Health Department (FCHD), a small local health department (LHD) in Kentucky, needed to improve the completion and timeliness of restaurant inspections to meet regulatory requirements. By using the Kaizen process and involving leaders from the LHD, the QI project team identified root...
CPH
In Progress
Impact Statement:
Columbus Public Health (CPH), a local health department in Ohio, was bogged down by a slow, costly process to administer vaccines to children at schools. By using PDSA and a Kaizen event approach, CPH increased the timeliness and efficiency to document the immunization services and decreased its...
Houston Health Department
In Progress
Impact Statement:
Mobile food units (MFUs) in Houston, Texas, now experience a faster, more efficient inspection process thanks to a Kaizen event held by Houston Health Department. The average time to complete the physical inspection and administrative paperwork has decreased from 3 hours to 30 minutes. Moreover,...
Missoula City-County Health Department
Completed
Impact Statement:
Missoula City-County Health Department used quality improvement to improve the functionality and satisfaction of its infectious disease after hours response team members, thus ensuring that emerging infectious disease issues in the community would be managed appropriately.
RiverStone Health
In Progress
Impact Statement:
Health Alert Network (HAN) messages provide vital public health information to the community’s health care providers, schools, churches, day care centers, and so on. The RiverStone Health team used a 5-day Kaizen event to improve the HAN process, create job keys, involve more staff, and decrease...
Stratford Health Department
Completed
Impact Statement:
The Stratford Health Department’s aim was to ensure that at least 75% of faith-based organizations (FBOs) were licensed, so they could provide food during public events throughout the year and minimize the risk of food-borne illness. While working through their QI planning project, staff fixed a...
City of St. Louis Department of Health
Completed
Impact Statement:
In becoming ready for PHAB accreditation, the City of St. Louis Department of Health’s performance management team used quality planning to create, test, and install a performance management system. The process included a fishbone diagram of the barriers to a culture of quality, an affinity diagram...
North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services
In Progress
Impact Statement:
Recognizing the critical role of timely and accurate death data for local health departments (LHDs) to perform surveillance and make informed decisions, the North Carolina Department of Health & Human Services used quality improvement to decrease the lag in posting identifiable death data from...
Minnesota Department of Health
Completed
Impact Statement:
The Minnesota Department of Health Birth Defects Monitoring and Analysis Program used a Kaizen event to streamline the process for identifying children with birth defects, decrease the median time from 49 to 37 days, and decrease the maximum time by 53%. Families may now be linked faster to...
MDH
Completed
Impact Statement:
The Kaizen event approach was selected to involve the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) Public Health Laboratory (PHL) team in reducing the percentage of influenza tests taking longer than 6 days to verify and eliminate testing errors. Within 4 months, errors were eliminated and test time length...
HEALTH
Completed
Impact Statement:
How might your health department track the trajectory and evolution of its QI and performance management system? Learn how Rhode Island Department of Health developed a survey tool to assess progress and measure QI uptake.
Rhode Island Department of Health
In Progress
Impact Statement:
The Rhode Island Department of Health improved the timeliness of data entry for early intervention (EI) services which enhanced appropriate and prompt preventive health services and follow-up care. Delayed entry of Individual Family Service Plans (IFSPs) by outside agencies into the KIDSNET system...
Missoula City-County Health Department
Completed
Impact Statement:
The number of breastfeeding women who have access to a certified lactation counselor soared when Missoula City-County Health Department staff used QI to improve their internal processes.
WCHD
In Progress
Impact Statement:
The Whatcom County Health department found that language and cultural barriers were contributing to higher numbers of critical Food Code violations for the almost 18% of non-English and ESL food service operators in Level 3 establishments in the County. The department considered the food service...
TCHD
Completed
Impact Statement:
Reducing adolescent tobacco use is a priority for Tooele County Health Department (TCHD) in Utah. Staff recognized the need to improve tobacco compliance check pass rates and identified that clerks who possess a valid permit were less likely to sell tobacco products to minors. TCHD used quality...
NCHD 5-2
Completed
Impact Statement:
This health department was able to achieve a 51% improvement in HIV testing rates, which can result in identifying more people with HIV and better, more immediate treatment. In order to reduce redundancy, the QI project team eliminated one of the demographic forms that had been required, saving...
NC DPH
In Progress
Impact Statement:
Review of timely and accurate evaluation data is crucial for health departments to provide effective interventions to improve the health of their communities. The Women’s Health branch of a state health department used several QI methods and tools—including a Kaizen event, multiple PDSA cycles and...
Washington County Department of Public Health and Environment
Completed
Impact Statement:
Using quality improvement to raise community awareness of the importance of annual private well water testing increased the number of tests performed, assuring a safe water supply for county residents all done without increasing processing costs!
OHA–Public Health Division
Completed
Impact Statement:
Team uses creativity to positively engage staff which enabled measurable improvements to be made to a critical agency process directly impacting the public. After the event, processing time was reduced substantially to a rolling average of 12.5 business days from the previous average of 30 business...
DeKalb County Board of Health
Completed
Impact Statement:
The DeKalb County Board of Health used a kaizen event to decrease the labor time and increase the accuracy of filing death certificate registrations. Improving the process resulted in labor savings, better cash flow and improved performance for customers in providing accurate and timely filing. The...
WCPH
Completed
Impact Statement:
Washington County (OR) conducted a Kaizen Event to improve the volume of childcare facilities that used the LHD for their state required inspections. The agency implemented several new policies and protocols to standardize the entire inspection process. As a result, they anticipate a reduction in...
Deschutes County Health Services
Completed
Impact Statement:
WIC coupons for use at famer’s markets are a precious resource for improving nutrition and reducing food hunger in low-income families, as well as supporting local farmers. Deschutes County Health Department noted a decreasing trend of redemption, which meant a literal wasting of coupons that other...
SLCHD
Completed
Impact Statement:
This initiative describes how quality leaders at the Salt Lake County Health Department challenged the status quo to transform organizational quality culture. Members of the SLCHD Quality Council identified a need to increase the health department's emphasis on quality after a review and...
DHMH
Completed
Impact Statement:
The Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene partnered with its local health departments and WIC clinics to increase the number of WIC clients referred to and receiving appropriate services to meet their needs.
Washington County Department of Public Health and Environment
Completed
Impact Statement:
Washington County Department of Public Health and Environment improved the process of renewing annual hazardous waste licenses to over 500 hazardous waste generators. Approximately 75% of renewals contained one or more defects which slows the process, consumes unnecessary time by the inspectors...
WCHD
Completed
Impact Statement:
A local health department in Washington was not able to serve all of the WIC-eligible clients in its jurisdiction. Process mapping led to three aims for increasing efficiency to make time for new clients: (1) Decreasing the average percentage of no-show appointments; (2) Increasing the WIC...
MDH
Completed
Impact Statement:
Effective tobacco control and prevention outreach is vital to decreasing tobacco use, secondhand smoke exposure, and tobacco-related disease rates. In addition, the loss of significant resources and funding for tobacco control and prevention have made it all the more important to have efficient...
Oregon Health Authority, Public Health Division, Maternal and Child Health Section
Completed
Impact Statement:
Staff from Oregon MothersCare conducted a QI project to improve their processes for prenatal care, which led to decreased errors in tracking and faster flow through the system so that pregnant women received services in a more timely manner. Access to prenatal care was also improved.
OCHD
Completed
Impact Statement:
Enforcement of food safety regulations plays a significant role in preventing food borne illness outbreaks. A local health department used the Lean method to increase efficiencies, standardize the process and reduce staff time and other costs for the administrative hearing process that enforces...
ELVPHD
Completed
Impact Statement:
Elkhorn Logan Valley Public Health Department improved the return rate of colon cancer screening kits by expanding the work process to include personal phone contact. The process now includes 3 phone attempts, within 3 weeks, to reach the participant. If still unable to reach the participant, the...
PHS
Completed
Impact Statement:
Inadequate documentation of policies and procedures is not just a hassle; it can also create confusion and redundancies that bog down staff’s ability to provide effective public health services and programs to the community. A small, rural local health department used quality improvement methods...
UDOH
Completed
Impact Statement:
This state health department quality improvement (QI) effort sought to improve customer satisfaction and increase use of the Utah state laboratory. The intervention tested was the development of a website for use by local health department (LHD) staff, who achieved both of the QI project goals. In...
BPHC
Completed
Impact Statement:
This big city health department used QI to improve their intake processes and obtained dramatic results in connecting the highest risk people with substance use disorders to existing city services, which in turn results in improved outcomes for individuals who are homeless, have co-occurring health...
DOH-Seminole
Completed
Impact Statement:
The Specialty Care clinic at the Florida Department of Health in Seminole County sought to notify clients more quickly of the results from their tests at the sexually transmitted disease clinic. A QI project led to implementation of a confidential no-reply text messaging system which resulted in...
MDCH
Completed
Impact Statement:
This Michigan Department of Community Health QI project sought to increase the number of grants reaching priority populations in response to requests for proposals (RFP) for tobacco control. The team used a survey to gather data on the biggest barriers to applying for grants that would reach the...
Clark County Health Department
Completed
Impact Statement:
Clark County Health Department increased the percent of eligible families that are referred to Kentucky’s home visitation program for new and expectant parents from 24% to 56%. Evidence indicates that increased participation in this program will positively impact preterm birth rates, low and very...
MMS CHS
Completed
Impact Statement:
This QI project used many QI tools to identify and design improvement actions to increase the redemption of food vouchers by WIC clients. While this project did not achieve the improvement target, , the development and application of tools could be helpful to other community health programs seeking...

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