328166
Leap tall silos in a single bound: Accreditation QI techniques that inspire cross-departmental problem-solving
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
: 3:10 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Patricia Zerounian, M.P.P.,
Administration Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, Monterey County Health Department, Salinas, CA
Creating and sustaining a culture of collaborative Quality Improvement (QI) is imperative to efficiently and effectively providing population-based health services, and achieves maximum results when instituted as an ongoing, system-wide practice. Learn specifics about how Monterey County (CA) Health Department launched a silo-breaking launch Quality Management Initiative and the subsequent growth of inter-departmental, cross-functional QI performance improvement procedures using quality leadership teams comprised of staff at all levels. Practical and easily understood Plan-Do-Check-Act tools gave participants of seven different public health disciplines a common terminology and basis for identifying the root causes and reasonable solutions to major systems problems, minor annoyances, and everything in between. Monterey County Health Department (MCHD) trained 103 employees - more than a tenth of its workforce - in QI Leadership and team functions in four, two day interactive training sessions. With no prior department-wide QI processes or trainings provided prior to November 2014, Monterey County Health Department staff developed 24 QI projects by January 2015 that addressed two-way medical/behavioral health client referral guidelines, personal protective equipment trainings, employee on- and off-boarding procedures, improvements for retaining WIC clients, developing cultural competence awareness for GLBTQ service providers, establishing a policy review system, and much more. Importantly, the inter-departmental aspect of QI teams created a first-ever problem-solving collaboration between Clinic Services, Behavioral Health, Public Health Nursing, and Administrative bureaus. Energy and commitment on behalf of line staff to department directors were buoyed and sustained with an innovative 4-step story-board template that communicates QI successes throughout the department and to the larger community.
Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadership
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health
Learning Objectives:
Explain how QI teams and techniques break down long-standing siloed public health functions.
Design a quality management structure that incorporates both performance measurement and quality improvement functions.
Demonstrate silo-breaking quality improvement success stories with a 4-step storyboard template.
Keyword(s): Quality Improvement, Performance Measurement
Presenting author's disclosure statement:Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Patricia Zerounian has worked in public health for 10 years and has a graduate degree in Public Policy. Patricia is Monterey County (CA) Health Department's Accreditation Coordinator and additionally sets and monitors bureau performance measures, guides the departmentâs quality management initiative, provides internal and external program evaluation, and sometimes, authors federal and foundation grant applications. She teaches program design, management, and evaluation at California State University Monterey Bay and has authored peer-reviewed articles.
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.
