Affinity Diagram

The Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health (CGCDPH) used PDSA to improve its process for applying for grants and involving all staff in understanding the process.

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...

Tarrant County Public Health’s (TCPH’s) North Texas Regional Laboratory (NTRL) decreased the cost of a specific HIV test by 40% by testing and adopting an alternative control test method. NTRL has received level funding for a few years while laboratory expenses have continued to grow. Achieving...

Washington County Department of Public Health and Environment led a multi-sector quality improvement project and increased the recycling rate at a county park. Expansion of this model to all county parks will further protect the environment and contribute to Minnesota's statewide goal of a 75...

Through a series of PDSA cycles, a division of the Boston Public Health Commission increased staff knowledge of ongoing program updates from 69% to 86% (a 25% increase).

By improving the perceived value of staff meetings, the Boston Public Health Commission can be more effective in its role to advance population health.

Customer satisfaction is key to any health department, and ensuring new employees’ satisfaction is no exception to this tenet. Deschutes County Health Services (DCHS) achieved tremendous success in orienting and onboarding these important “internal” customers through a comprehensive process that is...

Cecil County Health Department (CCHD) redesigned the onboarding process for new staff. As a result, most new staff reported that they understand their role at CCHD and found the onboarding process to be informative and useful. Onboarding education can improve staff members’ ability to meet...

Oneida County Health Department’s (OCHD’s) QI team increased QI project submissions from staff, thus strengthening ongoing performance improvement in the agency.

Cerro Gordo Health Department decreased fear levels of bed bug exposure among field staff. The implementation of a risk reduction plan minimized staff discomfort and facilitated a more effective intervention to bed bug exposure in the community.

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...

For health department services that have a major impact on citizens, ensuring high client satisfaction is important to the public’s understanding and support for these services. Three state health departments teamed together to improve the timeliness of death data, using the Kaizen method for...

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...

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...

Budget literacy of health department staff is a key attribute necessary before decentralizing financial management and program oversight. After an assessment that determined that staff had knowledge gaps, an educational intervention was initiated to increase their financial management competency....

Clackamas County Public Health Division has improved its onboarding processes to ensure that occupational health requirements are met within 30 days after hiring new employees and annually thereafter to ensure that risk is low and that employees and clients are safe and healthy.

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...

Saginaw County Department of Public Health (SCDPH) conducts strategic planning every 2 years. After noting that not all staff were engaged, the four previous strategic planning groups conducted a PDSA cycle on the strategic planning process. As a result, staff are now more committed to setting and...

Taking the bite out of labor intensive reporting and delays though community collaboration and use of QI tools and methods to increase the number of animal bite reports submitted to the health department in a timely fashion.

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.

Staff are Customers too! How involving all staff in the identification of barriers to completing department offered QI Training resulted in greater acceptance of, participation in, and an increase in the number of staff completing six required training modules.

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!

Untreated chlamydia (CT) and gonorrhea (GC) can lead to serious health problems in men and women. In order to effectively track and treat these two sexually transmitted infections, CDC guidelines require that low-priority CT and GC reports be processed by health departments within 30 days of...

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...

By streamlining their internal computer drive, creating an internal framework for its use/upkeep, and training staff on the efficient and effective use of the computer drive, the Three Rivers District Health Department has increased staff productivity.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

Using QI Tools and PDSA leads to significant improvement in the standardization of Final Inspection Reports.

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...

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...

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.

This northern Kentucky health department wanted to increase the percentage of properly licensed mobile food vendors to correct unsafe food handling and prevent foodborne illness related to mobile food vendors such as food trucks. With the large light-industry and numerous warehouses located...

In the long term, Licking County Health Department anticipates cost savings with respect to medical supplies. In the interim, they have successfully reorganized their supply process by creating a central supply storage location and implementing a streamlined supply ordering process without...

Even the implementation of evidence-based public health interventions poses challenges for most health departments. Using rapid-cycle tools and regular status monitoring, Cleveland County Health Department dramatically improved completion of the 5A’s smoking cessation service.

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%.

The county health department improved their planning processes for community meetings so that community partners would more actively collaborate in a community health improvement process and together make a stronger impact on priority health issues.

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 using quality planning to improve the effectiveness of community meetings, this small rural county increased community engagement and participation from 40 to 66% in the county-wide community health assessment and improvement planning process.

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...

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.

This local health department improved participation and contributions by their partners in the community to the Community Health Improvement Plan by 70%, leading to strengthened relationships with and more effective collaborative partnerships to take action to improve the community’s health.

This health department improved their method of engaging their community partners in the health improvement planning processes through meeting effectiveness surveys, more inclusive community representation, and improved communication.