Informal QI
Wyoming Department of Health, Public Health Division In Progress Impact Statement: The Wyoming Department of Health discovered a low rate of screening of Ryan White clients (RWCs) for STDs and hepatitis. Staff did a series of rapid PDSAs to improve the rate of screening and detection, and they are continuing to test further modifications to obtain even better results. |
MCDPH Completed Impact Statement: Maricopa County Department of Health (MCDPH) used QI methods to achieve a 90% decrease in callers to the health department who selected the "zero-out" option (transfer of call to a live operator), thereby freeing staff time to focus on other projects and ensuring that more callers quickly... |
SCHD Completed Impact Statement: Charting errors increased in Scott County Health Department's (SCHD's) STD clinic when a new electronic database was introduced. Anticipating the transition to the new database, the STD team implemented a QI effort to identify and correct problems with the charting process before they... |
Completed Impact Statement: Kendall County Health Department implemented successive PDSA cycles to better protect their population from West Nile Virus.
The QI activities eventually led to a nearly 200% increase in the number of mosquito tests performed. Moreover, the implementation of a GIS management system has led to... |
LPHI In Progress Impact Statement: The Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI), a nonprofit organization dependent on grant funding, engaged in a Kaizen process to decrease the amount of time it takes to prepare a grant proposal. After a 5-day Kaizen event, a new process and job aid were developed, and labor time for proposal... |
Tulare County Public Health Department Completed Impact Statement: Working together, the Tulare County Public Health Department’s tuberculosis (TB) team and nurses increased the on-time completion rates from 80% to 100% for referrals of suspected TB cases. The QI project resulted in a newly defined and consistent work process that improved communications and team... |
Marion Public Health Completed Impact Statement: The time participants spend waiting for appointments at the WIC clinic can lead to dissatisfaction with the WIC program and could negate efforts to retain program participants. The Marion Public Health WIC team used a fishbone diagram to determine that the primary root cause of long wait times in... |
North Carolina Division of Public Health Completed Impact Statement: NC Division of Public Health streamlined data collection and improved the quality of reportable data in their Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program resulting in greater use of these data to improve services to children and families. |
NCHD Completed Impact Statement: Client satisfaction data are a critical component of an agency’s QI plan but can be difficult to obtain. Through a 4-day Kaizen event, Northampton County Health Department (NCHD) in North Carolina streamlined and simplified its client satisfaction survey process, resulting in a 100% increase in the... |
FCHD Completed Impact Statement: 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 Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
Illinois State University Completed Impact Statement: The local health department noted waning engagement of the coalition working to implement the collaborative 2011 community action plan. Through a PDSA approach they were able to re-energize the coalition by collectively reassessing the community action plan, improving its clarity, re-developing... |
SEHD Completed Impact Statement: Vaccinating children is imperative in the prevention and spread of life-threatening communicable diseases. A rural regional health district conducted an improvement project using PDSA at three public health clinic sites to increase immunization rates among 19–35-month-old children seen at their... |
Jefferson County Public Health Service Completed Impact Statement: Responding to case reports of Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne infection in North America represented a very large time burden for a local health department in northwest New York state. The department used QI tools to decrease the number of steps and amount of time to respond to case... |
MCDPH Completed Impact Statement: A large county health department used effective data gathering, analysis, and interpretation with PDSA to enable increased WIC caseloads that in turn decreased the number of negative health outcomes among low-income mothers and their families who had not been receiving WIC benefits. |
Mississippi State Department of Health Completed Impact Statement: The Prentiss County Health Department and Mississippi State Department of Health partnered on a project to reduce wait time in their WIC clinics, reassign staff as needed on higher traffic days, and provide customer service training to frontline staff to assure greater satisfaction and... |
ODH Completed Impact Statement: In an effort to improve customer satisfaction, Carroll County General Health District embarked upon a QI project to decrease waiting time in the reproductive health clinic. Their aim for a 10% reduction in waiting time was nearly achieved by taking a novel approach to addressing the identified... |
CDHD Completed Impact Statement: 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. |
Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health Completed Impact Statement: Taking the whoop out of a Pertussis outbreak and enhancing a community's pertussis mitigation effort by using improved early identification and isolation outcomes methods to decrease the number of days between onset and the report of disease. |
CCHD Completed Impact Statement: Pregnant women face economic barriers to receipt of pertussis vaccines, increasing risks for infant transmission of the disease. Using PDSA and rapid cycle improvement, the health department partnered with a prenatal care provider to increase Tdap coverage from 1% to 49% of pregnant women whose... |
HCHD Completed Impact Statement: 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. |
SCPHS Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
Green Lake County Deptartment of Health and Human Services Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
KCPHD Completed Impact Statement: 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. |
Madison County Health Department Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
Gwinnett, Newton, and Rockdale County Health Departments Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
WCHD Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
Toledo–Lucas County Health Department (TLCHD) Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
FCPH Completed Impact Statement: 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 Completed Impact Statement: 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. |
YCHD Completed Impact Statement: 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. |
Skagit County Public Health Department Completed Impact Statement: 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. |
Florence County Health Department Completed Impact Statement: 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. |
Lower 8 of Southeast Kansas Regional Preparedness Group Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
Cumberland County Health Department Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
City of Portland Public Health Division Completed Impact Statement: 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. |
Genesee County Health Department Completed Impact Statement: Committed to minimizing the health and social impact of pandemic influenza in its jurisdiction, this health department applied continuous quality improvement (CQI) tools and methods to improve the accuracy, effectiveness, and timeliness of its risk communications plan and messages to staff and... |
Alabama Department of Public Health Completed Impact Statement: The Alabama state health department trained local health department family planning clinic staff in QI. The QI tools provided helped staff analyze current procedures and identify service delivery bottlenecks and then design interventions resulting in increased capacity and a reduction in waiting... |
Appleton Health Department Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
St. Clair County Health Department Completed Impact Statement: The local health department increased the number of infants and children receiving needed vaccines as part of a WIC visit, rather than referring them to another site and potentially losing that opportunity to protect them from getting a preventable disease or transmitting a vaccine-preventable... |
Green River District Health Department Completed Impact Statement: 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... |
Grand Traverse County Health Department Completed Impact Statement: After noting that the scores on certification exams given after food safety training courses to restaurant workers were markedly lower for workers in Chinese restaurants, the county undertook a QI project that included Chinese restaurant owners, managers and workers in the process. Multiple... |