This population health improvement tool provides a “roadmap” for improving the performance of the public health system, improving population health, and keeping community health planning visible to local decision-makers and communities. It lays out a long-term, strategic effort to address community-wide public health issues.

This guidebook is an accessible resource that includes information, tools, and applications of QI principles in practice. An important feature of this guidebook is that its content and structure are flexible enough for use by local public health practitioners or by those at the state or national level involved in public health practice. The Guidebook may be used to improve the quality of any public health process, program, organizational capacity, or systems effort. A distinguishing characteristic of this QI Guidebook is its public health focus and application. The Guidebook is intended for individuals and/or teams to begin or advance their use of a quality improvement (QI) model to improve public health practice and move toward improving outcomes.

These materials are intended to introduce the basics of QI to local health department or program staff. The information presented serves as a primer before delving into more in-depth information on how to use and apply QI. Available materials include a PowerPoint Presentation with talking points and instructions on how to tailor the slides to each program, a Presenter’s Guide, and step-by-step instructions on how to move through the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) process. The materials are designed for the beginner who has been introduced to QI methods and techniques.

The Public Health Quality Improvement Exchange (PHQIX) is an online community designed to be a communication hub for public health professionals interested in learning and sharing information about quality improvement (QI) in public health. The goal is to sustain national QI efforts by providing public health practitioners with a means for obtaining knowledge from the experience of their colleagues. The purpose of PHQIX is to disseminate information learned through QI initiatives and facilitate increased use of QI in public health practice. The website includes:

• An online database of QI efforts conducted by governmental public health departments across the country;
• Search and query functions to enable users to find interventions and tools relevant to their own health department and community needs; and
• A forum for dialogue and learning among the site’s users.

PHQIX is a public resource; there is no charge for participating.

The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (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. The IHI Knowledge Center offers tools, change ideas, measures to guide improvement, IHI white papers, audio and video, improvement stories, and more. The IHI Open School brings you essential trainings and tools in an online, educational community to help you and your team deliver excellent, safe care by building core skills in improvement, safety, and leadership. There may be a cost associated with these resources.

The American Society for Quality’s website includes:

• Quality Topics A to Z: Explore the concepts, tools, applications, and technical terms that make up the world of quality.
• Quality Tools A to Z: Explore the tools that can help you identify causes, understand processes, collect and analyze data, generate ideas, keep projects on track, and make informed decisions for all of your continuous improvement activities.
• Quality Glossary: A handy reference of quality terms, acronyms, and key people in the history of quality. This glossary derives from a variety of sources, including books, periodicals, Web sites, and quality experts.

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) recognizes the need for a toolkit of objective educational tools and resources to assist an organization in its quality improvement (QI) efforts. The HRSA Quality Toolkit is equipped with proven strategies and techniques to effectively support an organization’s new or existing QI program. The toolkit’s wide range of practical, convenient, and useful tools were contributed and compiled from several HRSA organizations, where members have proven their usefulness in current QI health care delivery initiatives. The tools and resources were used for implementing data collection and performance measurement techniques, and the organizations that integrated their use into QI programs effectively improved their deliveries of care. These resources are adaptable and may be used to facilitate the implementation of a new QI program or fine tune an existing one.

The HRSA Quality Toolkit:

• Highlights the importance of staff involvement and provides guidance on actively involving staff in a QI program.
• Describes various systematic approaches to QI for multidisciplinary teams.
• Provides practical and actionable strategies to improve care outcomes in various settings and within diverse constraints.
• Helps an organization to develop an effective plan for collecting and analyzing data.
• Explains the importance of integrating evidence-based medicine within a QI program.
• Demonstrates the correlation between cultural competency and quality health care delivery.
• Describes clinical quality measures and their uses for evaluating and measuring quality of care within an organization.
• Offers technical assistance for implementing clinical quality measures.
• Points to tools and resources external to the toolkit that an organization can access to further advance its quality objectives.

NICHQ is an independent, nonprofit organization working for more than a decade to improve children’s health, helping organizations and professionals who share this mission (typically, healthcare professionals and delivery organizations, foundations, government agencies, and community organizations) make breakthrough improvements so children and families live healthier lives. This site provides multidisciplinary, electronic, interactive QI toolkits developed for healthcare providers to help improve the care and outcomes of children for topic specific areas such as: Breastfeeding, Infant Health, Medical Home, and Hearing Screening.

The Public Health Performance Improvement (PHPI) Toolkit is an online collection of tools such as archived trainings, sample QI products, templates, and related resources. What makes the PHPI toolkit unique is that all the products have been developed by your public health peers through their own efforts to implement performance improvement activities and prepare for national voluntary accreditation. The toolkit is continuously updated with new additions from the work of NNPHI programs, members, and national partner organizations. The Section on Quality Improvement features a variety of tools and resources, including presentations, samples, and guides, on many QI topic areas, including Intro to QI, QI Plans, QI Leadership, Building QI Culture, Data & Measurement, and QI Tools & Frameworks.