Improving Community Engagement

The improvement theory reasoned that if the LHD demonstrated respect for partners' time and participation, the number of community sectors represented at meetings and meeting effectiveness would be increased. A tree diagram was developed to break the theory down into greater detail, including realistic action steps. CCHD believed that it could improve community engagement by implementing the following strategies:  To show proper respect for community partner schedules, every effort will be made to ensure clear and concise meeting agendas are prepared with relevant objectives.  An RSVP will be added to all meeting invitations. This will allow the team to see the level of engagement and to identify missing partners/sectors.  In response to the RSVP, the team will make a concerted effort to engage missing and key partners/sectors through personal contact via a phone call or face-to-face visit.  Draft agendas will be sent out at least 4 weeks in advance providing partners/sectors an opportunity to provide input. Meeting requests will have a clear concise goal with beginning and end time.  Each meeting will conclude with a meeting effectiveness survey.  Meeting minutes will be taken and circulated in a timely manner.  Adjustments will be made based on survey results and partner input. For the most part, the improvement process proceeded as planned. Specific issues became clear during the root cause analysis, and they accurately reflected the areas that needed the focus of interventions. The process yielded the results for which CCHD had hoped. Data included community sector representation and the meeting effectiveness surveys from each of two meetings. The data are reflected in a radar and bar graph. Initially, the number of attendees invited to the meetings was being measured, but the team realized that the number that attended was of secondary importance to the community sector representation that was needed to participate in the meetings. Once the team reconciled the intent to identify sectors, it became clear that the data they were collecting was more relevant to their goals of community engagement. Having resolved this issue, further data collection was accomplished without difficulty. The results of the interventions were in line with CCHD expectations. Once the appropriate effort went into planning the meeting, the results yielded were more positive, with greater sector participation and more effective meetings. For purposes of the quality improvement (QI) project, the improvements were focused on one particular area of community engagement—the team’s efforts to improve engagement in pursuit of a CHA and, ultimately, a CHIP. The success CCHD has experienced in this endeavor will be applied in all areas of community engagement. As such, community meetings will be planned in such a way as to incorporate these lessons. CCHD will plan meetings keeping their partners’ needs in mind as opposed to planning meetings to meet CCHD's own needs. Members within the organization were very accepting of the improvements for this project. CCHD is interested in seeing how these improvements are carried forward in all community engagements. CCHD is committed to taking more time and effort in the planning phases of community interactions, which requires a consistent commitment from staff. Busy schedules and competing priorities will be a constant obstacle to maintaining these improvements. CCHD will continue to track sector participation for each meeting through sign-in sheets with organizational/demographic data incorporated. Additionally, CCHD will track its meeting effectiveness using meeting effectiveness surveys for all subsequent meetings. CCHD will also periodically review data, comparing these data to CCHD's baseline and the successes CCHD has achieved through this process. During the process, no unexpected results occurred, but CCHD will continue to track the data.

The QI team collected information from the invitation list versus actual attendance. The team evaluated the sectors' input on the meeting effectiveness survey to gauge meeting quality with the anticipation that if partners are satisfied with the effectiveness of the meetings, they will continue to be engaged. The results of the meeting effectiveness survey went from an average of 3.4 to 4.6, as demonstrated on a radar chart (see Appendix F). A simple bar graph shows an increase in sector representation from 40% to 70%, with the goal being 60% (see Appendix G). The data clearly indicated that the improvement was effective. The team had set a goal of achieving a 4.0 on the meeting effectiveness survey and ended up with a 4.6. Additionally, the team had set a goal for 6 out of 10 sectors to participate, and 7 sectors were represented. No unexpected data were revealed. Considering the success that the data identified, CCHD decided to adopt the improvement.