1-3 Initiatives

The Harford County Health Department used QI to create a more welcoming environment for limited English proficiency populations by focused staff education, training, and standardization of processes, increasing the use translation services three fold.

It has been shown that home visiting and other supportive services provided during pregnancy improve perinatal outcomes. Sullivan County Public Health Services used QI to improve its internal processes for reaching women with high-risk pregnancies, so more mothers and babies can have healthy...

A local health department in rural Wisconsin was missing opportunities to immunize a significant number of teenagers who would potentially benefit from mandated or optional vaccines. They implemented an improvement project to standardize the process and educate staff in order to decrease missed...

To improve the reach of chronic disease management in Nebraska, an evidence-based chronic disease self-management program, Living Well, was implemented using awareness and communication techniques in Lancaster and Buffalo counties to improve participants' ability to manage their health...

Local health departments in Washington state monitor the quality of the Vaccine for Children program to ensure vaccines administered by the private sector maintain high quality and immunization rates improve. To eliminate redundancies, decrease inconsistencies between staff and improve clarity of...

Kittitas County Health Department improved their process for Alcohol Drug Dependency Service (ADDS) clients to follow through with Hepatitis C testing so that treatment would be received earlier and the spread of the disease reduced.

Through several PDCA cycles, the Madison County Health Department was able to increase revenue from billable service fees in two program areas -- one by 13% and the other by 16%. The process improvements gradually will be applied to all direct service program areas, followed by other improvements...

By engaging health department staff across all divisions in the process of developing proactive media messages based on local health needs and priorities, the Zanesville-Muskingum County Health Department was able to improve its provision of timely, needed public health information to the community.

This mixed semi-urban and rural county had the lowest rate of kindergartners completely immunized in New York State (89%), with baseline data for the immunization rates among schools in the county ranging from 15.4% to 90%. The QI initiative aimed to improve the immunization rate for children...

The public health community has lagged in using digital communications to make its presence and services delivered known to the general public. Gwinnett, Newton, and Rockdale County Health Departments found that creating a better experience and better information for website visitors was better...

Due to decreases in funding, the economic climate, and social determinants of risk behavior in Nevada, the Washoe County Health Department had to be ready to effectively manage any large Sexually Transmitted Disease outbreak with reduced numbers of Sexual Health Program staffing. Using QI processes...

Although located in an area with significant need for teen family planning services, a public health teen clinic in Spartanburg County had low rates of use. The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control followed a Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) approach and used QI tools to understand...

Fast and effective investigations into foodborne illness outbreaks are an important part of a food safety program because they reduce the time that people are exposed to a pathogen. Toledo-Lucas County reduced the cycle time for an effective investigation and closure of foodborne outbreak cases...

Wisconsin’s Prenatal Care Coordination (PNCC) program has been shown to decrease low-birth weight among single women, increase family support and involvement of the father, decrease preeclampsia, and decrease smoking among pregnant women. Clark County health department used QI to achieve 100%...

The Snohomish County Health Dept used QI on its immunization process.. By analyzing causes of error, introducing a new and standardized work flow, and using job aids that help to verify client records and data, the immunization error rate was reduced by over 50%.

By improving processes in its WIC program, the Wood County Health Department has made WIC education more accessible to clients, increased client satisfaction, and freed up staff time to complete other work assignments.

St. Croix County Public Health nurses were concerned that the time needed to complete required paperwork was taking them away from serving postpartum mothers and newborn babies. To put clients first, they conducted a quality improvement initiative that reduced the time for documentation by 37%....

Franklin County Public Health: This QI project sought to improve client satisfaction with Environmental Health programs, focusing for this project on the water quality partnership program. Understanding client satisfaction in programs that are fee-based, such as environmental health, can improve...

Deschutes County Health Services improved the efficiency and accuracy of entering data on immunizations into the state immunization registry. The interventions tested included eliminating paperwork errors, balancing workload, and improving courier scheduling.

Yadkin-County Health department used QI tools and methods decrease the time for notifying clients of abnormal Pap smear results, enabling clients to make informed decisions about follow-up care.

Using QI, Skagit County improved their implementation of the Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) Kids Club Program as a strategy for addressing childhood obesity in their community, which resulted in a 71% increase in physical activity among the program participants.

By giving women improved information on the prenatal care program and the WIC program, this collaborative increased entry into prenatal care and participation in WIC, thus promoting healthy birth outcomes in the community and synergy between the two programs.

Access to prenatal care contributes to successful birth outcomes. A Kansas health department found that patients had challenges completing the application process for the Medicaid Children’s Health Insurance Program. By conducting patient education and assistance with the application, the health...

By reducing the time to perform inspections of residential septic and well systems for real estate transactions, the Mahoning County District Board of Health made a positive economic impact in its community and improved customer service relations with local realtors.

Cumberland County Health Department achieved dramatic improvements in the quality of services offered by their Adult Health Clinic through a Kaizen event. Prescription refill wait times decreased from as long as 6 weeks to less than 72 hours, and referrals to specialists, many of which had lengthy...

Following a Pertussis outbreak, a health department worked with families and providers to increase adolescence immunization rates using QI to identify barriers that previously had resulted in undervaccination. In addition, a clinic-specific and county immunization monitoring system was set up to...

This health department found the root cause of the high HIV clinic “no show” to be out of date patient contact information. They developed a simple and timely patient contact update process that dropped the “no show” rate dramatically in 8 weeks.

An urban local health department found that 35% of mid-level staff did not know who to contact for questions about new department programs and services. This workforce development QI project led to development of a common resource packet that enabled staff to respond more quickly and effectively...

This 10-county District health department improved the processes of immunization clinic scheduling, preparation and follow-up and reduced the number of “no shows” , leading to greater efficiency and capacity. The improved process and staff training were then standardized across the 10 counties.

The local health department published the results of restaurant inspections on their website so that people could see them and make choices about where to eat. In addition, the public gained a better understanding of what environmental health staff of the department do to prevent food borne...

The health department discovered that most of its employees were unaware of the many of the Department’s media activities for outreach and education. The department made several changes to increase employee awareness of current and new media efforts and achieved a major improvement on all three of...

The Mid-Michigan District Health Department optimized the performance of the automated telephone system for clients calling the health department to assure mis-routings were minimized, customers were directed to intended recipients, and customer satisfaction was improved.