A Quality Improvement Collaborative Can Boost Emergency Preparedness, Study Finds
Dissemination of the results and tools from a learning collaborative for quality improvement in public health and pandemic influenza preparedness
From 2005 to 2008, researchers at the RAND Corporation spurred the use of quality improvement—a data-driven approach to performance often used in industry, the military and health care, but not public health—to boost emergency preparedness among state and local public health agencies.
The researchers published a white paper and articles on the quality improvement approach, developed a pilot collaborative to help five public health agencies use it to prepare for pandemic flu and created a toolkit to encourage other agencies to use quality improvement to improve emergency preparedness.
Key Findings
Researchers reported the following findings in "Using Quality Improvement Methods To Improve Public Health Emergency Preparedness: PREPARE For Pandemic Influenza" (Health Affairs, 27[5], 2008; online version, July 2008):
- The quality improvement collaborative provided substantial evidence that such an approach can boost emergency preparedness and overall performance of public health departments.
- The public health teams participating in the collaborative were enthusiastic about applying quality improvement strategies to emergency preparedness, as well as to the day-to-day activities of public health agencies.
Key Results
Researchers reported the following additional results to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF):
- RAND published Quality Improvement in Public Health: A Way Forward (2006), a white paper that makes the case for using quality improvement (QI) in public health and suggests how to speed its integration into public health practice.
- RAND researchers developed and disseminated PREPARE for Pandemic Influenza: A Quality Improvement Toolkit to help state and local health departments incorporate quality improvement strategies into emergency preparedness.
- The pilot collaborative "galvanized a QI movement in public health," according to Project Co-Director Nicole Lurie, MD, MSPH. The collaborative not only raised awareness of the need for quality improvement in public health, but also provided a concrete example by applying the approach to preparedness for pandemic flu.