Strengths in and Barriers to Outreach Processes and Productivity in a Public Health Maternal and Early Childhood Nurse Home Visitation Program

Background: The goals and promise of early maternal, child health nurse home visitation to vulnerable populations are more likely to be achieved when the program is operating at maximum capacity and efficiency. Program funding is dependent on completed visit counts, visit counts are dependent on adequate caseload capacity and capacity is reached through enrollment of and outreach to the eligible population, along with awareness in the community. Description: With the long term goal of expanding nurse home visitation statewide, realizing the evidenced based outcomes, achieving the major goals of the program and increasing access to all eligible participants, public health nursing leadership in a Southern state addressed productivity issues and outreach efforts within the statewide public health nurse home visitation program. Methods included (1) discussion groups with personnel from 15 existing teams regarding outreach strategies, efforts, strengths, challenges, suggestions and insight for improvement, (2) surveys of existing clients and “drop-outs” regarding their personal perception of outreach and enrollment into the program, (3) telephone surveys of women declining services, and (4) evaluation of data regarding referrals, enrollment, capacity, and productivity of sites within the program. Lessons Learned: The results will compare productivity and client perception regarding enrollment across sites related to area served. The analysis will reveal outreach efforts, strengths, challenges, suggestions and insight for improvement from the staff of the nurse home visitation program. Recommendations: Recommendations will be promulgated to guide action plans to increase productivity, as applicable, using outreach “best practices” discovered during the inquiry and analysis.