142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

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Sustaining QI Training in a State Health Department

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 : 4:50 PM - 5:10 PM

Magaly Angeloni, DrPH, MBA , Office of the Director, Rhode Island Department of Health, Providence, RI
With Public Health Accreditation, establishing Quality Improvement (QI) methods to be more efficient and effective has become a national trend among health departments.  Public health agencies preparing for Accreditation across the nation are training staff and launching agency-wide initiatives to use the QI tools that would save time, money and better serve our customers. 

One state health department developed a three-year cycle strategy to sustain QI training for its staff. In the first year a team receives initial expert training, and then customizes training content, examples and lessons learned for the following teams.  Using this low-cost strategy, the state health department has provided meaningful QI training to over 10% of its workforce and is launching a “QI 101” basic training program to all staff. Beyond the benefits of the QI improvements from conducting about a dozen QI projects each year, the agency is developing real QI capacity among its staff, realizing savings in training costs, maintaining the interest in QI and making progress leading to an agency-wide culture of Quality Improvement.

This presentation will discuss:

-         the low cost, 3-year cycle sustainable methodology for QI training

-         the estimated cost of the in-house training

-         the evaluation results of each training session and the agency’s plans to sustain QI training

The ultimate benefit of Public Health Accreditation is not reaching the certification status, but instituting a culture of quality improvement that is sustainable and becomes part of the fabric of the daily work. When government resources especially for training are scarcer than ever, developing our workforce and achieving efficiencies across the board must be considered a priority to make real progress in the public health goals.

Learning Areas:

Administration, management, leadership
Public health administration or related administration
Public health or related education
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines

Learning Objectives:
Describe a sustainable, low cost 3-year cycle approach of QI training in a state health department Discuss the challenges to maintain an agency-wide QI strategy

Keyword(s): Quality Improvement, Training

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am trained in Quality Improvement, have been leading the QI effort in my agency for over 2 years, have trained other staff in my agency on QI, have attended multiple workshops and presented on QI efforts, and have been fully responsible for the work described in this abstract.
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.