Numerous industries in the United States have adopted the quality improvement policy in order to enhance certain practices as well as their outcomes. Among these industries is the health care industry whereby quality improvement strategies play a vital role in relation to supporting the public health system as well as improvement of outcomes. Due to this, leaders of public health are coming up with certain quality improvement approaches that are to be applied in public health settings (AH, 2009). The increase in demand of quality improvement in public health has led to growing accountability expectations. The quality improvements in public health goals systematically involve the evaluation of certain practices, programs as well as policies of public health. In this article, there are major initiatives that were set for quality improvement in public health (AH, 2009).
The first major initiative is that the United States Health and Human Services Department created the public health quality forum useful in reflecting the support of as well as the commitment to public health quality improvement by the federal government. The development of the Public Health Quality Forum has been accredited to improved processes in relation to ensuring that departments of health meet the health needs of their communities consistently in order to improve their health status (AH, 2009). The second initiative includes the Public Health Accreditation Board that supports the development of a national voluntary accreditation program. This program’s main goal is to protect at the same time improve each community’s health by making advancements in the health departments of performance and quality. The third initiative is the Multi-State Learning Collaborative which is focused on quality improvement at both local and state levels. This initiative often prepares the departments of public health for accreditation as well as incorporating quality improvement practices into health systems.
In this article, two case studies were conducted whereby positive outcomes were observed. The first case study was bout constructing a quality improvement culture in Minnesota’s local public health departments. Positive outcomes from this case study include; participants’ survey responses on the projects showed that the efforts to build a quality improvement culture were effective. To elaborate further on the outcomes, 75% of the respondents got to see the relevance of quality improvement to their organizations. 60% agreed strongly that they were given new and useful information about quality improvement (AH, 2009). 72% had the intention to use the practices in upcoming future projects whereas 79% rated the management’s interest in the project as very supportive. Another positive outcome is that nearly 250 public health professionals of local, state as well as university levels got to be trained in 10 quality improvement methods.
The second case study included South Carolina’s application in the institute of healthcare improvement’s model for quality improvement in public health. The positive outcome from this case study was that the South Carolina Department of Health employed the Institute of Healthcare Improvements’ model as the clinics began to implement tobacco-use screening. This is a positive outcome as it was greatly looking into implementing the Institute of Healthcare Improvements’ model for its quality improvement collaborative that focused on the use of tobacco as well as the exposure to secondhand smoke (AH,2009). On the stated next steps, it is seen that through Multi-State Learning Collaborative, states have become more focused on accreditation, development of expertise in quality improvement as well as formation of collaborative that suit their needs. This has helped inform stakeholders on what to do in order to engage in public health quality improvement activities though more research is required in public health in order to fully improve agency performance and community health (AH, 2009)
References
Academy Health, (2009), Quality Improvement in Public Health: Lessons Learned from the Multi-State Learning Collaborative (1-5).
