Implementing Organization-Wide Quality Improvement Starts with a Plan

There are many compelling reasons to engage in formal quality improvement activities: overcoming barriers to desired outcomes, streamlining processes, conserving resources, empowering staff, and most recently, for local, state, tribal, and territorial health department accreditation.

This session will provide participants with a template and process for developing an organization-wide Quality Improvement Plan. Presenters will seek to simplify the process by providing a clear framework and a case study example from the Sedgwick County (KS) Health Department. The rationale for Quality Improvement Plans will be established and key terms that guide the process will be defined. This session will be highly interactive as participants build the component parts of a Quality Improvement Plan. One key component of the plan that will receive focused attention will be an organization's plan for quality improvement training. Participants will gain an understanding about the elements of a Quality Improvement Plan and will leave the session with draft beginnings of components of the plan.

Not only is the Quality Improvement Plan a required element of the Public Health Accreditation Board's standards, such plans can be used by any organization to improve organizational and individual performance.