About QI and performance management

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What is quality improvement?
What is performance management?
More QI resources

Need technical assistance? The MDH Center for Public Health Practice can help: Help and TA available to local and tribal public health.

Quality improvement (QI) is the use of a deliberate and defined improvement process and the continuous and ongoing effort to achieve measurable improvements in the efficiency, effectiveness, performance, accountability, outcomes, and other indicators of quality that improve the health of the community.

• What are we trying to accomplish?
• How will we know the change is an improvement?
• What changes can we make that will result in an improvement?

Guiding principles of QI: develop a strong customer focus, continually improve all processes, involve employees, mobilize both data and team knowledge to improve decision making.

Performance management uses data for decision-making, by setting objectives, measuring and reporting progress toward those objectives, and engaging in quality improvement activities when desired progress toward those objectives is not being made.

The MDH performance management cycle (above) can help you walk through using performance management to, for example, monitor and revise your community health improvement plan.

• Results and standards: Where do we want to be? Strong community health improvement plans have clear goals and SMART objectives.
• Measurement: How will we know? Community health improvement plans require measurement to monitor progress.
• Monitoring and communicating progress: How well are we doing? Community health boards should monitor their plans, document progress, and communicate with stakeholders to monitor progress.
• Quality improvement: How will we improve? Change course as needed, based on monitoring progress.

More information: Introduction to performance management (PDF)

Email lists and newsletters

• NNPHI newsletter subscription request form, National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI)
• PHAB e-newsletters, Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB)
• Clear Impact (formerly Results-Based Accountability); scroll down to the bottom of the page to sign up for the email newsletter
• phPIN: How do I join?, Public Health Performance Improvement Network

Videos

• Model For Improvement clip 1 (2:54), Institute for Healthcare Improvement
• Model For Improvement clip 2 (3:00), Institute for Healthcare Improvement
• Whiteboard: PDSA in everyday life (4:45), Institute for Healthcare Improvement
• Whiteboard: The PDSA cycle (Part 2) (3:48), Institute for Healthcare Improvement
• Mike Davidge on Measurement for Improvement (9:52), NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement

Organizations

• ASQ (American Society for Quality): ASQ is a global community of people dedicated to quality who share the ideas and tools that make our world work better. ASQ provides the quality community with training, professional certifications, and knowledge to a vast network of members of the global quality community.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): Performance management and quality improvement
• Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI): Resources: IHI, an independent not-for-profit organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a leading innovator, convener, partner, and driver of results in health and health care improvement worldwide.
• Michigan Public Health Institute Office of Public Health Improvement: The Office of Public Health Improvement is dedicated to working with public health agencies and other organizations to help them implement best practices in quality improvement (QI) and translate current QI research into practice through training, technical assistance, and project consultation and management. (Formerly Michigan Local Public Health Accreditation Program, Michigan Public Health Institute Office of Accreditation and Quality Improvement.)
• National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO): Quality improvement: NACCHO's members are the 2700 local health departments across the United States. NACCHO's mission is to improve the health of communities by strengthening and advocating for local health departments. See also: NACCHO: Performance management.
• National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI): Performance and quality improvement: The Public Health Performance Improvement Network (phPIN) is a learning community and peer exchange network for those of you providing leadership in performance improvement in public health. phPIN offers a forum for innovative performance improvement practitioners in public health to network, access just-in-time resources, and share emerging practices on the topics of most interest to you:
• Performance Excellence Network (PEN): To help you achieve your goals and navigate your way to excellence, the Performance Excellence Network is your GPS—your navigation tool for guiding you through the options available and making your passage to achieve excellence as direct as possible. (Founded as Minnesota Council for Quality)
• Public Health Foundation: Performance management and quality improvement: The Public Health Foundation, a private, non-profit, 501(c)3 organization based in Washington, DC, improves the public's health by strengthening the quality and performance of public health practice.
• USAID ASSIST Project: Improvement science: The objective of the USAID Applying Science to Strengthen and Improve Systems (ASSIST) Project is to improve the quality and outcomes of health care and other services by enabling host country providers and managers to apply the science of improvement.

Performance management resources

• Balanced Scorecard Institute
• Balanced Scorecard (3:59) (note: video will autoplay), Intrafocus
• Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
• Embracing quality in public health: A practitioner’s performance management primer, Michigan Public Health Institute Office of Public Health Improvement
• Access the performance management self-assessment, Public Health Foundation
• Fiscal Policy Studies Institute

• Performance management at MDH (PDF), MDH Health Partnerships Division
• Agency performance management (PDF), Minnesota Dept. of Health

Guidebooks

• Performance management primer, Michigan Public Health Institute Office of Public Health Improvement
• Roadmap to a culture of quality improvement, NACCHO
• Measuring what matters in public health: A health department's guide to performance management (PDF), NACCHO

Developing QI plans

• Characteristics of a good quality improvement plan (PDF), MDH Public Health Practice Section
• Quality improvement plan (PDF), MDH Public Health Practice Section
• Developing a health department quality improvement plan, Public Health Foundation
• Quality Improvement (QI) plan toolkit, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)