Rhode Island Department of Health Makes Great Strides throughout QI Journey
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- Last Updated on Friday, 04 September 2015 20:36
As the Rhode Island Quality Improvement Initiative comes to a close, the RI Department of Health (DOH) will continue to foster a QI culture. The year-long initiative incorporated a mixture of webinars, workshops, and on-site kaizen events to introduce key QI concepts to home-visiting agencies across Rhode Island. “When an issue arises, you know a way to get to the root cause and your work ends up being more efficient and effective.” Stacey Aguiar, Early Childhood Project and Quality Improvement Manager, explains how this QI initiative gave participants the tools and knowledge needed to truly understand and overcome any problems that may occur. When asked what three words she would use to describe the QI experience, she chose “fun, all-encompassing, and challenging.” Stacey, along with coworkers Christelle Farrow and Emily Eisenstein, noted that the adoption of quality improvement within their organization has helped in increasing overall efficiency and team work and in establishing a standard of work employees can easily learn and follow going forward.
The RI DOH has since begun spreading QI throughout hospitals and clinics and is beginning to work on cross-sector efforts spanning all divisions throughout the DOH. Two of their primary takeaway activities were Value Stream Mapping and the Kaizen Event, a 4-day lean best practice that allows participants a chance to make rapid changes and improvement. Kristine Campagna, Chief of Program Development at the RI Department of Health, is a big advocate for this event, stating
She mentioned that RI DOH has already scheduled additional kaizen events throughout the organization through December and they hope to keep the momentum going. One way they plan to continue on this upward cycle is by strategically using value stream mapping to keep their vision and purpose at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
Through hard work and initial trainings with CPHQ, the RI DOH now has the tools and knowledge to spread quality improvement throughout the state, and is making big plans for the future. Campagna stated, “the health department is taking the lead now on this training across the state because of the work we are doing with CPHQ. I’m excited, as a leader, to spread quality improvement because we have QI champions.” The work Rhode Island is doing will no doubt have huge impact on health in communities across the state. It will be exciting to see how they continue to utilize QI in the future to better their public health system.
