Standard 7.2 Identify and Implement Strategies to Improve Access to Health Care Services

Butte County Public Health Department (BCPHD) in California used QI to expedite the annual medical review (AMR) process for eligibility into the California Children's Services (CCS) program. More children and their families now have improved access to these specialty health care services.

Missoula City-County Health Department in Montana drastically increased its reach to clients who are eligible for its Health Services programs by improving program referral processes for existing clients. As a result, the health department can much better serve eligible women, infants, and children.

Staff at Deschutes County Health Services (DCHS) recognized that they had so many different programs in operation that it was difficult for staff to make all the appropriate referrals for clients. They did a QI project, and their improvement hypothesis targeted three areas: knowledge, workflow, and...

Early intervention has been shown to positively impact outcomes across developmental domains. The Fond du Lac County Health Department increased the number of children being screened for developmental delays from 5 to 9 per month, allowing more children to be appropriately connected with services...

El Dorado County Health and Human Services Agency used a Kaizen event to improve customer satisfaction and reduce labor time in the County “request for information” process. The results of the project mean better and faster information to the incoming caller, so they can make more informed...

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.

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.

Michigan’s Maternal Infant Health Program serves low-income families and pregnant women to improve birth outcomes. A local health district in that state used the PDSA cycle to reduce office-related work and increase time for direct client services in order to make the program more efficient and...

A local health department increased early enrollment of pregnant women in smoking cessation programs to reduce risks of pregnancy complications, premature delivery, and their infants being low-birth weight, stillborn, or dying from SIDS.

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...

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...

The Washington state health department conducted a Kaizen event to streamline the application process for HIV positive Washington state residents with low incomes to receive coverage. Multiple improvements were made, several target goals were exceeded, resulting in quicker access to life-saving...

Due to a variety of barriers, including inefficient flow of clients during WIC visits, eligible families were not engaging with WIC services. The clinics at this health department improved their processes and exceeded their initial goals, allowing many more families to be able to eat well and be...

A local health department noted a high rate of early post-partum unintended pregnancies among women in the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, and used QI to identify three interventions to reduce the rate.

A systematic 9- step approach to manage access to prenatal care was the key to improving access to medical exams within the first 2 weeks of a positive pregnancy test. This systematic approach removed previous barriers that caused a delay in the process from pregnancy testing to initial medical...

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...

The Allegan County Health Department used QI to increase of the percent of department programs that perform client satisfaction surveys from 33 to 81%. As a result valuable feedback from clients is enabling the department to provide services and programs that better meet the needs of its community.

The local health department improved how they got customer satisfaction information from clients at their sexually transmitted disease clinics, enabling them to use the feedback to increase client satisfaction, improve program efficiency and provide culturally-appropriate services.

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.

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.

The health department was concerned about a falling rate of visits by homeless people to the federally funded Health Care for Homeless project despite an increase in the homeless population. They investigated the causes and made several changes including implementing a process for walk-in service...

The state health department developed a training program for public health staff at the state and local levels to apply continuous quality improvement in their delivery of public health services, in turn resulting in better health outcomes for the people of North Carolina.

Challenged by undesired delays for clinic appointments, high no-show rates, client dissatisfaction, and suboptimal productivity, Macon County Public used QI to implement an open access clinic appointment system that allowed them to schedule appointments within 72 hours for all clients and all...