How to Focus Your Training and Professional Development Efforts to Improve the Skills of Your Public Health Organization: White Paper
April 10, 2012
This white paper reports on a series of workshops on focusing limited training and professional development resources to build competence within the public health workforce. Using a quality improvement tool, the prioritization matrix, workshop participants determined the relative importance of the...
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Conduct a Personalized SWOT: Align Yourself for Professional Growth
June 16, 2011
This free resource offers tools and methods for individuals to learn how to fully promote their talents, skills, and abilities within their organization. The personal SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) is a useful tool for investigating conflict between individual and organizational...
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A Lean Day in the Tulsa Health Department White Paper
April 13, 2011
With assistance from PHF, the Tulsa Health Department Quality Improvement Council (QIC) conducted a Lean event in three of its facilities with the objective of beautification of the environment and creating efficiency for the customer. Lean is a process management philosophy that helps optimize the...
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Quality Improvement Success in Kansas with H1N1 and Social Distancing
April 11, 2011
In the summer of 2009, Kansas Department of Health and Environment QI teams used flowcharting to create a new information alert system. The QI team identified three major channels for information. The teams subsequently used their new flowcharting skills to design isolation activities for infected individuals...
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Quality Improvement Success in Orange County, Florida with Documentation Cycle Time
April 11, 2011
The Orange County Health Department Division of Environmental Health in Florida chartered a QI team to improve customer satisfaction with the speed and accuracy of Septic System Permitting. Measurement of operations indicated that the causes for delay in issuing permits were uninformed contractors,...
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Quality Improvement Success in Orange County, Florida with Early Syphilis Detection
April 11, 2011
Between 2004 and 2005, the Orange County Health Department (OCHD) in Florida experienced a 45% increase in new early syphilis cases in its jurisdiction, from 136 cases to 195 cases per year. Surveillance data also showed significant increases in early syphilis over the previous four years. If not controlled,...
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A Complete Quality System Requires a Complete Leader
December 14, 2010
At every organizational level a critical mass of leadership must be trained in the principles of quality, problem solving, teaming, and facilitation. Leadership must be able to lead and facilitate teams so that they can show they walk the talk and embrace the principles imbedded in a Complete Quality...
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About Performance Management
September 10, 2010
In 2010, PHF created a short two-page primer on performance management in public health, synthesizing information from a number of performance management resources, including From Silos to Systems: Using Performance Management to Improve the Public’s Health. This original framework was refreshed in...
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The ABCs of PDCA
September 10, 2010
The ABCs of PDCA, written by Grace Gorenflo and John W. Moran in April 2010, is an introduction to quality improvement (QI) through the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle (PDCA). This QI tool maps a process to help improve processes and eliminate inefficiencies in health departments. The article demonstrates...
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Thirty Pitfalls of Strategic and Operational Planning and How to Overcome Them
March 8, 2010
This white paper by John W. (Jack) Moran, Senior Quality Advisor to PHF, introduces in a very relatable way the many ways in which organizational planning can be derailed, postponed, or sabotaged. Learn how strategic and operational planning can be affected negatively in order to be aware of what to...
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