Rapid Cycle Improvement

Implementing an improved process to collect customer feedback resulted in a staggering increase in customer satisfaction survey responses, from an average of 12 per month to more than 1,000 per month. The feedback will greatly enhance Manatee County Health Department’s (DOH-Manatee’s) performance...

Oneida County Health Department’s (OCHD’s) QI team increased QI project submissions from staff, thus strengthening ongoing performance improvement in the agency.

For health department services that have a major impact on citizens, ensuring high client satisfaction is important to the public’s understanding and support for these services. Three state health departments teamed together to improve the timeliness of death data, using the Kaizen method for...

This medium-size local health department improved and standardized the effectiveness of environmental health (EH) plan reviews for new restaurant establishments. The QI team used Kaizen and Lean Six Sigma methods and tools to successfully reduce the EH plan review approval time frame from 30 days...

Clackamas County Public Health Division has improved its onboarding processes to ensure that occupational health requirements are met within 30 days after hiring new employees and annually thereafter to ensure that risk is low and that employees and clients are safe and healthy.

Review of timely and accurate evaluation data is crucial for health departments to provide effective interventions to improve the health of their communities. The Women’s Health branch of a state health department used several QI methods and tools—including a Kaizen event, multiple PDSA cycles and...

Cabarrus Health Alliance and partners used quality improvement to streamline their processes for referrals for pregnancy care management to improve overall handoffs and cycle times, resulting in more timely and effective referrals for care management to ensure healthier mothers and babies.

A knowledgeable and involved team, subject matter expertise, and the Kaizen improvement method helped the Madison County Health Department reduce their client no show rates in the Family Planning Clinic. Root cause analysis led the team to create standardized process procedures, client scheduling...

NC Division of Public Health streamlined data collection and improved the quality of reportable data in their Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program resulting in greater use of these data to improve services to children and families.

Client satisfaction data are a critical component of an agency’s QI plan but can be difficult to obtain. Through a 4-day Kaizen event, Northampton County Health Department (NCHD) in North Carolina streamlined and simplified its client satisfaction survey process, resulting in a 100% increase in the...

A local health department in North Carolina used PDSA cycles and lean/kaizen approaches to improve their clinic client and community satisfaction survey tools and data collection process. This provided a system-wide framework to enable the organization to better understand their customers’ needs,...

This medium-sized health department tackled the unacceptable wait time in its Primary Care Clinics. The wait time averaged 1.5 hours for new patients and 30–45 minutes for returning patients. The QI team members observed how people are processed through the stations and identified improvement...

Inadequate documentation of policies and procedures is not just a hassle; it can also create confusion and redundancies that bog down staff’s ability to provide effective public health services and programs to the community. A small, rural local health department used quality improvement methods...

Vaccinating children is imperative in the prevention and spread of life-threatening communicable diseases. A rural regional health district conducted an improvement project using PDSA at three public health clinic sites to increase immunization rates among 19–35-month-old children seen at their...

Michigan’s Maternal Infant Health Program serves low-income families and pregnant women to improve birth outcomes. A local health district in that state used the PDSA cycle to reduce office-related work and increase time for direct client services in order to make the program more efficient and...

A local health department increased early enrollment of pregnant women in smoking cessation programs to reduce risks of pregnancy complications, premature delivery, and their infants being low-birth weight, stillborn, or dying from SIDS.

Clark County Health Department increased the percent of eligible families that are referred to Kentucky’s home visitation program for new and expectant parents from 24% to 56%. Evidence indicates that increased participation in this program will positively impact preterm birth rates, low and very...

Pregnant women face economic barriers to receipt of pertussis vaccines, increasing risks for infant transmission of the disease. Using PDSA and rapid cycle improvement, the health department partnered with a prenatal care provider to increase Tdap coverage from 1% to 49% of pregnant women whose...

Using Kaizen Rapid Improvement Event, Denver Public Health not only made the vaccine administrative process more efficient, but helped to ensure the appropriate vaccine and fund source was applied, thereby preserving scarce privately funded vaccines.

The Washington state health department conducted a Kaizen event to streamline the application process for HIV positive Washington state residents with low incomes to receive coverage. Multiple improvements were made, several target goals were exceeded, resulting in quicker access to life-saving...

Kittitas County Health Department improved their process for Alcohol Drug Dependency Service (ADDS) clients to follow through with Hepatitis C testing so that treatment would be received earlier and the spread of the disease reduced.

In Fillmore County Public Health department, the time from notification to investigation of health problems and environmental health hazards (animal bites, infectious diseases, and nuisances) took longer than desired. Data was collected to understand the current state; investigations ranged from...

A systematic 9- step approach to manage access to prenatal care was the key to improving access to medical exams within the first 2 weeks of a positive pregnancy test. This systematic approach removed previous barriers that caused a delay in the process from pregnancy testing to initial medical...

Because surveillance for communicable disease had been provided by the state, the Red Cliff Community health department had limited knowledge of communicable diseases in their community. They used quality improvement to bring communicable disease reporting, surveillance, control and prevention...

The public health community has lagged in using digital communications to make its presence and services delivered known to the general public. Gwinnett, Newton, and Rockdale County Health Departments found that creating a better experience and better information for website visitors was better...

Due to decreases in funding, the economic climate, and social determinants of risk behavior in Nevada, the Washoe County Health Department had to be ready to effectively manage any large Sexually Transmitted Disease outbreak with reduced numbers of Sexual Health Program staffing. Using QI processes...

TPCHD sped its response time for solid waste complaints, resulting in greater protection of the public’s health, better customer service, and greater accountability to its community members.

SRHD reduced the number of water recreation facilities with violations that required re-inspection, resulting in better efficiency and reduced risk of illness and injury among community members.

The state health department developed a training program for public health staff at the state and local levels to apply continuous quality improvement in their delivery of public health services, in turn resulting in better health outcomes for the people of North Carolina.

This local health department addressed an unacceptable rate of low birth weight births by standardizing their referral process and timeframes; successfully making pre-natal care referrals earlier in the gestation period to ultimately improve the health of newborns in their county.

By implementing more accurate Medicaid billing procedures that resulted in an increase in Medicaid match revenue, the local health department was able to re-direct funds to necessary departmental strategic priorities that benefit the health of the local community.

The local health department increased the number of infants and children receiving needed vaccines as part of a WIC visit, rather than referring them to another site and potentially losing that opportunity to protect them from getting a preventable disease or transmitting a vaccine-preventable...

The health department needed all staff nurses to be able to give vaccinations for emergencies like the H1N1 influenza epidemic, including nurses working in roles that do not involve giving clinical care. They improved the process for keeping all nurses competent in determining when, how, and which...