January 2016
STD Q u I ps!
Updates from the National STD Quality Improvement Center
Improving Access to Care: The Power of Lean QI 
Lean Quality Improvement is focused on creating a culture of improvement and quality within any given organization. It engages all levels of staff to identify opportunities and think creatively about how to improve organizational processes. It's core principle is based on increasing value for customers and cutting non-value added barriers to quality care. 

Many healthcare institutions around the world are using Lean Quality Improvement to tackle issues in patient care. Here is a sampling of some of those institutions (click for links to quality improvement examples and information):
Watch this short inspirational video from San Mateo Medical Center in California, a county hospital that used Lean QI (called LEAP in this video) to reduce the appointment waiting list from 5,000 patients to ZERO.


Improving Access to Care at San Mateo Medical Center
Improving Access to Care at San Mateo Medical Center

The National QI Center is here to help the regional Prevention Training Centers and their clinic partners  improve access to and quality of STD services to best meet patient needs. 

The Spotlight: Improving CT Screening Among Adolescents
    
 
The California Department of Public Health STD Control Branch and the CAPTC (National QI Center) partnered on an enhanced evaluation project to increase sexual health risk assessment and chlamydia (CT) screening of age-eligible sexually-active adolescents in a high volume pediatric practice at the Fresno Community Regional Center, Ambulatory Care Center.
 
Project Aim/Activities:
  • Aim: Integrate routine sexual risk assessments into pediatric primary care practice to increase chlamydia screening rates and improve patient outcomes.
  • Population Health Improvement Partners (formerly Center for Public Health Quality) conducted an on-site QI Event to increase staff's capacity to use rapid cycle/LEAN QI methods to improve clinic practice.
  • Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycles that were tested included:
    • Universal urine collection on all Well Child visit patients age 12+
    • Universal documentation of Sexual Activity for all patients age 12+
    • Medical Assistant conducting vitals, sexual risk screening and Family PACT (Medicaid waiver) enrollment with adolescent alone in the room.
    • Separating parent and adolescent patient intake forms
    • Staff escorting parents to the waiting room to prevent inadvertent breach of adolescent information during confidential portion of the visit
  • At 30-day follow up, the CDPH team checked in on the progress of these PDSAs, and helped to plan for sustaining changes and testing new PDSAs
From the on-site evaluation:
"This was a wonderful experience for the entire clinic. Everyone learned a lot and I expect this project will ultimately result in improved patient care, not only for adolescents/STI prevention & treatment, but in other areas as well."
Updates from Our Partner!

Formerly known as:

Center for Public Health Quality has a new name!!

Introducing Population Health Improvement Partners
Committed to Helping Your Community Achieve Better, Faster, Results.

Population Health Improvement Partners  was formed by merging the Center for Healthy North Carolina (CHNC) and the Center for Public Health Quality (CPHQ). CHNC has built a strong reputation in helping community coalitions expand capacity to improve health locally, through coalition enhancement and the use of community-appropriate, evidence based interventions. CPHQ has provided groundbreaking QI training and technical support to public health organizations in North Carolina as well as across the United States.
 
Today, Population Health Improvement Partners makes all of these programs and services available to you . And, by blending our expertise (for more information, click here ), we will offer many more new opportunities for enhancing the agility and effectiveness of health-focused organizations and coalitions in North Carolina and nationally. Population Health Improvement Partners is ready to assist you with building your organizational and community capacity to achieve better, faster, results.
________________________________________________________________________________________
To learn more, we invite you to visit our NEW website ( www.improvepartners.org   ) and please contact us at [email protected] to share how we can best meet your organization or coalition's needs.
 
Next Up...Baltimore & North Carolina!
We are currently in the planning stages of the next two on-sites!

Coming January 2016 - Baltimore PTC & the Family Health Centers of Baltimore

Coming February 2016 - Alabama/North Carolina PTC & Guilford County Health Department

Stay Connected
300 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA