Health Affairs

Health Affairs, doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.27.5.w328 (Published online July 15, 2008) © 2008 by Project HOPE	New Online   Getting Health Reform Done   After the State of the Union   Incremental Reform   E-Health in Developing World   Most-Read Articles in 2009

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Using Quality Improvement Methods To Improve Public Health Emergency Preparedness: PREPARE For Pandemic Influenza

Debra Lotstein ^1*, Michael Seid ², Karen Ricci ³, Kristin Leuschner ⁴, Peter Margolis ⁵, Nicole Lurie ⁶

¹ Debra Lotstein is a research scientist at RAND in Santa Monica, California, and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles.
² Michael Seid is a professor of pediatrics and director of Health Outcomes and Quality of Care Research in the Division of Pulmonary Medicine and the Center for Health Care Quality, Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center, in Cincinnati, Ohio.
³ Karen Ricci is a senior project manager at RAND in Santa Monica.
⁴ Kristin Leuschner is a senior communications analyst there.
⁵ Peter Margolis is a professor of pediatrics and codirector of the Center for Health Care Quality, Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center.
⁶ Nicole Lurie is senior natural scientist and the Paul O'Neill Alcoa Professor at RAND in Arlington, Virginia.

^*Corresponding author.

Abstract

Many public health departments seek to improve their capability to respond to large-scale events such as an influenza pandemic. Quality improvement (QI), a structured approach to improving performance, has not been widely applied in public health. We developed and tested a pilot QI collaborative to explore whether QI could help public health departments improve their pandemic preparedness. We demonstrated that this is a promising model for improving public health preparedness and may be useful for improving public health performance overall. Further efforts are needed, however, to encourage the robust implementation of QI in public health. [Health Affairs 27, no. 5 (2008): w328-w339 (published online 15 July 2008; 10.1377/hlthaff.27.5.w328)]

Key Words: Access To Care, Consumer Issues, Health Promotion/Disease Prevention, Public Health, Quality Of Care, State/Local Issues, Bioterrorism, Vaccines

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