We just received a new grant award from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials to participate in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s National Quality Improvement Demonstration Initiative!  Arizona was only one of only 5 states with a successful application.  This is great for Arizona for a number of reasons.  

First, it’ll help prepare our agency for national accreditation as a state public health agency.  The grant will fund a quality improvement project that is a collaboration of Women’s & Children’s Health, Chronic Disease, and Environmental Health.  Key public health staff will go through a quality improvement process to review and standardize home safety assessment and referral protocols between ADHS- funded programs.  Conducting continuous quality improvement is a focus of accreditation, so this is a fabulous opportunity to learn by doing!  

Second, this serves as another example of how we’re implementing our Strategic Map.  This Quality Improvement Initiative fits perfectly with the strategic areas of developing and prioritizing resources to maximize results, as well as strengthen internal processes using continuous quality improvement.   

Third, it serves as an example of a successful grant application that was put together quickly with existing staff resources.   The grant announcement was issued in early December, with a due date of January 9.  You can imagine that putting a grant application together at this time of year was no small task.  We quickly assembled a team to consider applying; Sheila Sjolander came up with a concept for the grant, and the team finessed the concept to ensure it fit the intention and specifications in the grant guidance.   Credit goes to Toni Means, Tim Vaske, Diane Eckles, Bre Thomas, and Neelima Gabriel for their hard work pulling the application together.  Check out the original grant guidance and Arizona’s response on our Managing for Excellence webpage.