News and Events

AHRQ Innovations Exchange: Taking Innovations to Scale

Friday, January 24, 2014 - We thought this cool resource would be relevant to the PHQIX community. AHRQ's Health Care Innovations Exchange speeds up the implementation of new and better ways of delivering health care. Taking Innovations to Scale highlights resources and information to help innovators and adopters, alike. Read more and explore here.

NACCHO Webinar to Focus on Accreditation

Friday, January 17, 2014 - The next webinar in NACCHO's Accreditation Preparation and Performance Improvement Series is entitled "Working in Teams: Accreditation Preparation Tips from Those Who Know," and will take place Thursday, February 13th at 2:00PM ET. This program will feature the story of one accredited local health department (LHD) and the insight of one PHAB site visitor. 

On this webinar, Dana Webb-Randall, the accreditation coordinator from Comanche County Health Department (OK), accredited February 2013, will share their accreditation team structure and how they organized the documentation collection process. Additionally, Mary Kushion, former health director of the Central Michigan District Health Department, who has served as a PHAB site visitor twice during the Beta Test and twice since program launch, will share insight from her time volunteering for PHAB.

Together, they will share their stories, the lessons they learned, and what they wish they had known before starting. This webinar is free and open to all, but space is limited, so register today!
 

Drawing Winner Announced

Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - Kate Louther from Wisconsin is the lucky winner of last month's drawing! She created the Survey Monkey Community Forum post last month. Thanks for commenting, Kate, and enjoy your iPad mini! 

Didn't win this time around? No fear! Comment anywhere on the PHQIX website until January 31 and you'll entered into a drawing for an iPad mini, too!

Update from an APHA Drawing Winner

Thursday, January 9, 2014 - Brittney Jones, a recent graduate, who won the APHA Drawing last November and was sponsored to attend the conference by PHQIX, sent us the following snippet about her experiences:

"As a recent graduate in public health, my experience at APHA, made possible by PHQIX, was very rewarding. Specifically, being introduced to various public health organizations expanded my career search. I also learned that quality improvement in public health is an initiative that is very valuable to the public health system. By communicating with various professionals across the nation doing this work through PHQIX, I learned that public health quality improvement can encourage new ideas that can potentially help the US to become the healthiest nation in one generation."

We agree, Brittney! Thank you and good luck in your future endeavors! 

Twitter chat next Tuesday!

Monday, January 6, 2014 - Mark your calendars! Our next Twitter chat will be next Tuesday, January 14 from 12 to 1 PM. Follow the hashtag #QITogether to follow the conversation!

Happy New Year! Drawing Extended

Thursday, January 2, 2014 - Happy New Year! To celebrate the coming of 2014, we are extending our PHQIX drawing one more week. Until January 10, 2014, comment on a Community Forum post or on a QI submission to be entered into a drawing to win an iPad mini. Winners will be announced on Monday, January 13. If you start a Community Forum post, you will be entered into the drawing twice!

...And let the commenting begin! Here's to a happy, healthy and QI-filled new year!

'Implementing Successful QI' Webinar Series: December Overview

Thursday, December 19, 2013 - Last week, PHQIX hosted a QI Webinar titled, "Implementing Successful QI: Lessons Learned from RiverStone Health." Over 30 participants participated from across the United States to hear about RiverStone's QI initiative to improve retention rates among WIC participants in Montana.

Missed it? No fear!

You can find the recorded webinar in the PHQIX Media section of our site, the PowerPoint presentation here, and the storyboard from this QI initiative here.

We also asked Hannah Silveus, our speaker from RiverStone Health, to answer some of your outstanding questions from the webinar. See her answers below!

• With the great success of this project have you seen other programs have an increased interest in applying QI tools and strategies?

Yes, there has definitely been an increase in the sharing of QI tools that were developed during this project. Our Population Health Services department, for example, is utilizing some of the tools for a cross-jurisdictional shared services grant they are working on. This sharing of resources and decrease in duplication of effort is a benefit of including staff from multiple departments on a QI team.

• What other QI project ideas have emerged?

In terms of more QI projects for WIC, we are hoping to do another round of QI utilizing the baselines we established in this project. We were not able to increase the participation numbers with the first cycle so we want to try another round. One potential solution we are curious about implementing is to do text message reminders to clients to decrease the number of missed appointments.

• What main input did the WIC Client provide? Was it difficult to bring in the client to the meetings?

It was valuable to have the WIC Client at the meetings because she provided feedback to feasibility of potential solutions we generated. Instead of doing a survey each time to get client feedback about ideas, she was able to provide this input on the spot and that was a huge time saver. For example, when we came up with the idea of leaving voicemails, she was the voice of reason that reminded us that a lot of times, people don’t have the time or interest to check voicemail, whereas a text is quick and easy to check.

It was not difficult to bring the client to the meetings, but sometimes her work schedule conflicted, or she did not check her email as frequently as RiverStone Health staff did. To accommodate this, we planned ahead and built in flexibility for different processes. For example, towards the end of the planning stage when we were ready to vote on a specific solution, she was not going to be at the meeting to do that. Having a voting form that allowed team members to vote on their own, and allowed for everyone to have equal input, allowed her to still feel included in this voting process.