The QI Collaborative: Minnesota Public Health Collaborative for Quality Improvement

The QI Collaborative is a partnership between the Local Public Health Association (LPHA), the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (SPH). The QI Collaborative is intended to build a culture of continuous quality improvement in the Minnesota public health system by providing resources, tools, technical assistance and training on quality improvement techniques to the state and local public health departments.

Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the QI Collaborative is Minnesota’s contribution to the work of the Multi State Learning Collaborative (MLC). Sixteen states participate in the MLC initiative in order to build quality improvement capacity in public health agencies across the country and prepare state and local health departments for voluntary national accreditation.

< Return to the top of the page

Activities

The local public health system development activities undertaken by the State Community Health Services Advisory Committee (SCHSAC) over the past few years (developing essential local public health activities, performance measures, accountability review process, new components of local planning process) share the common thread of quality improvement to strengthen the local public health infrastructure.

Now that the basic framework is in place, the QI Collaborative will add depth to this framework by providing tools to recognize opportunities for improvement; identifying changes to be made; testing changes; analyzing what was learned; and incorporating lessons learned into programs and activities.

The QI Collaborative provides training opportunities, technical assistance, and opportunities for local public health project teams to share success and challenges. Intensive learning sessions and monthly webinars provide project teams, consisting of local public health staff and their community partners, with a rigorous introduction to quality improvement methods and principles as well as evidenced-based strategies to address improvement targets.

Participating local public health teams identify opportunities for improvement and use quality improvement tools and processes to change the way they do business. Teams gradually test strategies for improving their work and report monthly on their progress. When tests of change are shown to work, teams implement those changes broadly in order to make the greatest impact possible.

< Return to the top of the page

Steering Committee

A Steering Committee of representatives from LPHA, MDH and SPH guide this initiative. All local public health departments are invited to participate. Future projects will be expanded to include state public health teams as well. Staff from the MDH Office of Performance Improvement are supporting these efforts.

< Return to the top of the page

Questions

If you have questions about the QI Collaborative, please contact Debra Burns by phone (651-201-3880) or email (debra.burns@state.mn.us).

< Return to the top of the page