|
Current
National Public Health Performance Standards Program (NPHPSP)
 The National Public Health Performance Standard Program (NPHPSP) is a National Partnership initiative that has developed National Public Health Performance Standards for state and local public health systems and for public health governing bodies. Partners in the effort include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), American Public Health Association (APHA), Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), National Association of Local Boards of Health (NALBOH), National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI), and the Public Health Foundation (PHF). As a national partner in the NPHPSP, PHF is the lead organization in administering the data reporting page and in providing tools and technical assistance on performance improvement and quality improvement.
Nearly 1,000 sites around the country have participated in the NPHPSP and made it the nation's leading program to strengthen public health systems. With the rising interest in quality improvement and accreditation on the horizon, there has never been a better time to use the NPHPSP tools and educate your staff, board, and partners on the 10 Essential Public Health Services. The vision, mission, and goals of the NPHPSP are provided on the CDC web site for the project.
Asthma in America: We Can Do Better
PHF will convene three one and one-half day regional meetings with key public health system stakeholders for the purpose of identifying: 1) strategies that have worked to prevent and control asthma; 2) strategies that have failed to achieve desired results; 3) factors contributing to and facilitating success; and 4) factors contributing to desired results not being achieved. Results from the three regional meetings will be analyzed and summarized in a report for distribution to federal, state, and local public health policymakers who are in a position to use the findings to improve their asthma prevention and management strategies and programs. This project is supported by AstraZeneca. For more information, contact Jacalyn Carden.
Top
Past
Orange County Quality Improvement Project
PHF successfully completed a quality improvement (QI) project with the Orange County, Florida whereby QI techniques were used to help local health department teams solve important public health problems. In this innovative project, the Orange County Health Department (OCHD) STD team actively used QI tec hniques to curb the growing syphilis problem in their community, and the HIV team applied similar techniques to look at increasing access to early HIV care throughout Orange County. In addition, the QI project helped the STD team tackle and successfully address problems they were facing in retaining qualified workers. PHF’s role in this project included: facilitating QI "learning and working" sessions with two teams, providing and tailoring QI materials appropriate to public health, assisting with identifying performance measures and standards, offering technical assistance on public health improvement strategies, and participating in milestone meetings with the project teams. PHF also arranged for two local QI consultants to work weekly with each team over three to four months, helping them apply techniques and determine which approaches get the best results. The project was evaluated by Florida State University College of Medicine, Center for Medicine and Public Health, with positive results.
| PHF’s role in this project included: facilitating QI "learning and working" sessions with two teams, providing and tailoring QI materials appropriate to public health, assisting with identifying performance measures and standards, offering technical assistance on public health improvement strategies, and participating in milestone meetings with the project teams. PHF also arranged for two local QI consultants to work weekly with each team over three to four months, helping them apply techniques and determine which approaches get the best results. The project was evaluated by Florida State University College of Medicine, Center for Medicine and Public Health, with positive results. |
PHF helps an Orange County STD team use the "Affinity Diagram" technique to analyze local causes of syphilis problems. (Oct. 2005) |
Orange County leaders, already committed to QI, were encouraged by the outcome of the QI project and hopes the project will help them spread success and enthusiasm to other units. The OCHD wants to expand the QI project to other departments by extending the funding received from the Winter Park Health Foundation to a second year, with the health department providing partial support.
Other public health organizations looking to apply QI methods for meeting programmatic goals can take advantage of Orange County’s STD storyboard to find out how the STD team used QI methods and tools to turn the county’s syphilis problem around, and retain qualified workers. In addition, public health practitioners can find out more about QI methods, examples, and lessons by visiting the Public Health Infrastructure Resource Center (PHIRC).
For more information, contact Jacalyn Carden.
Top
IHI- PHF Public Health Page
PHF partnered with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) to create a public health page on IHI's site. This page provides access to a special collection of resources and content from IHI's work in health care quality improvement that can help public health leaders and staff bring quality improvement to their programs and organizations. This page was made possible by a PHF grant from the National Library of Medicine (NLM) as part of the Partners for Information Access project.
Communicating the Value of Public Health Agencies in Preparedness
In 2004, PHF assisted the National Association of County and City Health Officials in a project to help local public health agencies better understand and communicate what they bring to their communities' bioterrorism and emergency preparedness efforts. Selected local public health agency leaders worked in partnership with experts and representatives from other sectors to clarify messages and case examples of ways public health agencies share an important role in community preparedness.
The project resulted in two tip sheets, which can be purchased from NACCHO:
For more information, please e-mail Jacalyn Carden.
Top
Renewal Communities/Empowerment Zones/Enterprise Communities Health Planning Technical Assistance Project
PHF, with funding from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provided health planning technical assistance to Empowerment Zones (EZ), Enterprise Communities (EC), and Renewal Communities (RC) throughout the United States. The project involved three technical assistance venues that helped RC/EZ/ECs incorporate health into their economic and community development initiatives:
- Online clearinghouse that includes stories and models from the field, tools, tips, and links for a variety of health planning areas:
- Good Health/Good Economy
- Planning for a Healthy RC/EZ/EC
- Mobilizing Partnerships and Making Contacts
- Working on Priority Health Issues
- Evaluating Your Efforts
- Funding
- Technical assistance which RC/EZ/ECs could contact PHF staff for health planning assistance such as:
- Health data requests and interpretation
- Obtaining health improvement topic specific resources, materials, and best practices for interventions
- Developing health improvement advisory groups
- Mobilizing health partnerships
- Making contacts with federal, state, and local agencies and community organizations
- Assessing and prioritizing health needs and assets
- Planning, implementing, and evaluating health plans and activities
- An audioconference focused on health insurance issues. As a result of the audioconference’s success, an in-person conference highlighting 3-Share Health Coverage Models was held on May 30-31, 2002, in Muskegon, Michigan. RC/EZ/ECs from around the country attended the conference and learned how Muskegon’s 3-Share Model works.
For more information, please e-mail Jennifer Stanley.
Top
Empowerment Zones/Enterprise Communities Health Benchmarking Demonstration Project
PHF, with funding from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, assisted three Empowerment Zones/Enterprise Communities (EZ/ECs) in assessing health needs and assets and subsequently in developing health improvement plans. The demonstration sites were Wilmington, Delaware; New Haven, Connecticut; and Denver, Colorado.
To assist these communities in identifying community health priorities and in setting and achieving an action-oriented set of goals, technical assistance was provided:
- Consultation was provided both on- and off-site to fill gaps in needed expertise, to provide services not otherwise available, or to be a guide through unfamiliar tasks.
- Examples of best practices and additional reference materials were assembled to assist each site in crafting health benchmarks appropriate for their community.
- Federal partners were involved to provide expertise in areas such as informatics, access to care, and available resources.
This 1998-1999 demonstration project provided insight into how health issues and strategies for improving health can be integrated into community economic development initiatives.
The project has documented lessons learned about EZ/EC health improvement planning so that communities throughout the United States can use them.
Top
|
