Health: PHPM: Tracking Public Health Performance

Performance Management (PM)

PM is the practice of actively using performance data to improve the public’s health. This involves strategic use of performance measures and standards to establish performance objectives and targets; regular measurement monitoring toward objectives, and engaging in quality improvement activities when desired progress is not achieved.

Quality Improvement (QI)

Quality Improvement QI is the use of a deliberate and defined improvement process. It refers to a continuous and ongoing effort to achieve measurable results. This could be improvements in the efficiency, effectiveness, performance, accountability, outcomes, and other indicators of quality services or processes which achieve equity and improve health.

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?

Why QI?

QI can support the achievement of the following:

Reduce redundancy
Streamline processes
Enhance ability to meet customer needs
Improve customer satisfaction
Eliminate waste and variation
Improve outcomes!

Quality Improvement aligns with Governor Eric Holcomb’s 2018 Next Level Agenda's fifth pillar which aims to deliver great government service.

Culture of Quality

How does an agency know if they have achieved a true culture of quality? An organization’s culture is a set of shared beliefs, attitudes, values, and practices that characterize the way things are done. It is the way in which employees do their work and react to and solve challenges. A culture of quality is an organizational value system that results in an environment supportive of continuous quality improvement. Staff are constantly thinking of ways to be innovative and focus on customer needs. They are thinking about improvement prior to a problem arising. It is built into the way the organization gets there work done, without thinking about it.

Office of Public Health Performance Management (OPHPM) recognizes that many public health partners have already embedded quality improvement into daily work. IDOH and OPHPM strive to support all approaches to QI and celebrate the success of all forms. IDOH strives toward a Culture of Quality by embracing the following:

Shared habit of how work is done
Quality embedded into daily work
Focus on learning and adapting to change
Continuous process improvement
Focus on customer value
Celebration of learning and success

When building a culture of quality, a natural evolution of change tends to occur, impacting both people and processes. IDOH has adopted the QI Roadmap to guide progress through six phases of QI until a culture of quality is reached and sustainable. For each phase, the Roadmap presents common organizational characteristics, strategies, and resources for transitioning to the next phase.

QI Roadmap Phases

The QI Roadmap is based on six foundational elements of a QI culture that health departments should cultivate over time. Each of the foundational elements interact with one another and are critical to transforming culture. The type of transformational change we are seeking to make with regard to our organizational culture involves addressing both the processes and technical infrastructure needed to support QI, but also the human needs of the employees in the organization that are critical to success. Click here to download all Roadmap and Self-Assessment resources.

Improvement Strategies in Public Health

IDOH is deploying a Lean strategy as a formal approach to improve the way we deliver Public Health Services.

LEAN/PDSA