141st APHA Annual Meeting

In This section

284537
Applying and communicating quality improvement and shared services efforts to local health departments

Monday, November 4, 2013

Jennifer Scofield , Cuyahoga County Office of the Executive, Cleveland, OH
Martin Tremmel , Office of Local Health Department Support, Ohio Department of Health, Columbus, OH
Joseph Mazzola , Office of Local Health Department Support, Ohio Department of Health, Columbus, OH
Currently in Ohio there are 125 local health departments (LHD) comprised of 88 county and 37 city. To respond to the need of improving the public health delivery system, a statewide committee (Legislative Committee on Public Health Futures) examined the current local public health capacity, services jurisdictional structure, and financing. One of members of the Futures Committee included a senior staffer from the Cuyahoga County Executive's Office who administers the CountyStat strategy and who has a background in public health. The Committee unanimously agreed to eleven recommendations to assist in promoting greater efficiency in areas such as shared services, fiscal accountability, quality improvement, accreditation and community health assessment.

Cuyahoga CountyStat is a data-driven accountability system that is used as a decision-making and communications strategy. Through this strategy, county government is methodically examining every function and using benchmarks and recognized best practices to become more flexible and more effective; guide the allocation of resources; allow for the continual monitoring of progress on measures; and demonstrate accountability and transparency. Each county agency, including the county health department, develops an AgencyStat team to drive the work and gather data on universal (productivity) and critical (agency-specific) measures.

This abstract will outline the CountyStat strategy and the Public Health Futures Recommendations as part of a larger effort to improve the local, regional and statewide public health system. Co-presentations will be made examining how this is done in Cuyahoga County and how efficiencies are being examined, implemented and communicated on a statewide basis. This paper will address administrative and leadership challenges in health administration practice and present solutions including how to apply best practices. This paper will focus on practice from a county government perspective with unique transferability to local public health agencies. More generally it will address health administration practice, quality improvement, and leadership.

Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadership
Public health administration or related administration
Public health or related laws, regulations, standards, or guidelines
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines

Learning Objectives:
Define purpose of CountyStat in Cuyahoga County and discuss the various principles of performance measurement in government; Describe best or promising practices and examples from Cuyahoga CountyStat; Identify interaction of county and state government in Ohio and the Legislative Committee on Public Health Futures as “vehicle” to direct local public health improvement efforts; Explain CountyStat model to address accreditation and quality improvement standards, specifically how to use data for more effective budget and sustainability decision-making strategies to support core public health services

Keywords: Public Health Administration, Public Health Policy

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified to be an abstract Author on health administration because I have been a public health professional since 1992, in all levels of government. I have coordinated the CountyStat performance measurement strategy since 2010; co-presented on two performance management webinars hosted by the Government Finance Officers Association; presented at the Public Performance Measurement and Reporting Conference at Rutgers University; and published "Asking Why - Cuyahoga County Stat" in Government Finance Review in 2011.
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.