Session: Continuous Quality Improvement


Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

5163.0: Wednesday, December 14, 2005: 2:30 PM-4:00 PM

Oral

Continuous Quality Improvement

Preparing for the future is crucial. In today’s highly competitive and changing marketplace the margin for error is decreasing; hence planning for the future is necessary for survival and success. Within this context, understanding continuous quality improvement (CQI) approach and building CQI systems are vital to real improvement at any institution or organization. These systems ensure consistent execution of work processes, and provide reliable feedback to help monitor activities. They also include a mechanism to sustain the gains achieved with improvement activities, and ensure that high-standard practices are integrated into everyday work efforts. The purpose of this session is to discuss the importance and the implementation of CQI approach and systems in public health programs and agencies. It is now a common practice to implement Quality Improvement approach and tools in Health Care Administration. However, no matter how well structured plans are or how comprehensive quality improvement is, the real challenge is building the most appropriate systems for health care settings and using the adaptable and flexible tools, which have impacts on the process and outcomes. We will discuss four papers in the session. The topics of the papers are “Improving North Carolina local public health agencies: Contribution of an academic partner”, “Developing Value Added Public Health Interventions in Los Angeles County”, Public Health “Peer Reviewers”; Front line evidence advocates and “Dealing with disruptive physician behavior: Evidence based suggestions for physician executives and non-physician administrators”. These case studies include different aspects of CQI that will help us to discuss the philosophy and implementation of CQI.

Learning Objectives: Following this presentation participants will be able to: 1. Experience how a quality system and a quality culture can be implemented through a Continuous Quality Improvement approach that motivates and encourages employees of the entire organization. 2. Value culture change strategies that replace how well each person or agency works by how well they work together and with community partners. 3. Use adaptable and flexible health outcome indicators that measure the current situation and accordingly improve programs and policies of local health agencies. 4. Learn the objectives, key mechanism and techniques of the peer-review process. 5. Create strategies to develop healthy collaborative work environment. 6. Explore new ways of doing business/things and communicating with internal and external stakeholders.

Moderator(s):

Seval Akgun, Professor

2:30 PM

Introductory Remarks

2:35 PM

Dealing with disruptive physician behavior: Evidence based suggestions for physician executives and non-physician administrators