PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT ~ Moving

Moving towards system performance improvement after the NPHPSP assessments

The NPHPSP performance assessments should provide system participants with an understanding of the gaps between their current performance and the optimal level of performance described by the standards. System partners can then determine where the largest or most crucial gaps in performance are; these are the areas on which the action plan should focus.

The results should be incorporated into a broader planning process, such as a community health improvement process such as MAPP, a state health improvement process, or a local board of health strategic planning process.

If this type of planning process is not underway, go to the "What Next?" section of the NPHPSP User Guide for strategies and ideas for moving forward with performance improvement efforts. The Resources link also provides useful information.

Depending on which assessments are used, different levels of improvement planning may be needed:

• State / local system performance improvement planning - every responding state or local public health system should conduct improvement planning. These plans should be based both on the CDC quantitative reports, as well as on qualitative ideas and comments that emerged during the assessment discussions. Improvement strategies and areas for accountability should be identified for the public health agency and system partners.

• Governance body improvement planning - governing entities that undertake the governance assessment often use their results to develop a strategic plan for the board of health. To the extent possible, boards should work with their local health official and other agency staff to identify key areas and strategies for improvement. If the local public health system assessment was done, the two sets of information can be quite insightful. In these cases, the governance action plan should be coordinated with the system performance improvement plan.

• Statewide performance improvement planning - in states where a coordinated statewide approach is used to implement multiple NPHPSP assessments, the statewide action plans should be developed. CDC provides statewide aggregate reports to states that use the local instrument in all or most local jurisdictions. Another report is also available that summarizes both the state and local data, if both instruments have been used.

Once improvement planning is underway, the action plans should be institutionalized to assure that the performance continues at the higher levels.

Reassessments every three to four years can aid in monitoring progress and identifying new gaps that need to be addressed.