262276 It's Gemba Not Gumbo – Initiating a Quality Improvement Program in a Local Public Health Department

Monday, October 29, 2012

Michael Kennedy, MPH , Mecklenburg County Health Department, Charlotte, NC
Evelyn Stitt, RN, MSN , Mecklenburg County Health Department, Charlotte, NC
Some form of Quality improvement (QI) has long been a staple of public health. In recent years there has been a more focused, science-based approach on a statewide level to initiate and support efforts to create a “culture of quality” in local health departments. The Mecklenburg County Health Department (Charlotte) partnered with the North Carolina Center for Public Health Quality to create a cadre of trained staff to provide leadership in developing and implementing continuous quality improvement efforts in response to identified needs and requests from department leaders. This presentation will discuss the successes and challenges of these efforts, relating how utilizing the initial tools (Plan-Do-Study-Act; Root Cause Analysis) and ones found more appropriate (Gemba Walks, Kaizen Events, LEAN Thinking) engaged front-line staff in changing procedures in response to data. Lessons learned from the experience, including data collected from QI projects, strategies found successful and ongoing challenges will be presented. Plans for “hardwiring” the effort while it continues to evolve will be shared with participants.

Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadership
Program planning
Public health administration or related administration

Learning Objectives:
Identify effective steps for implementing formal quality improvement initiatives Discuss challenges to QI implementation and steps for achieving success

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have participated in leadership in Quality Improvement initiative in local health department; have been trained in NC statewide initiative.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.