Author: Cedergren, Britta

How we Manage Performance and Quality at the Connecticut Department of Public Health:
Striving for Excellence Daily in Everything We Do

Performance Standards
What are we aiming for?
National standards from sources like these can be used
to select indicators and targets for programs
Healthy People 2020 Example:
Reduce blood lead levels in children
ages 1-5

Performance Measurement
How will we know how we are doing?
Refine measures and targets to monitor
how well programs are doing.

How much did we do?
(process measure)

Example 1 Example 2

% of lead abatement
contractors professionally licensed

# of callers using the Tobacco Quitline

How well did we do it?
(process measure)

Is anyone better off?
(outcome measure)

% of lead positive homes abated for lead

Incidence of lead poisoned children is reduced in the state of CT

# of Tobacco Quitline callers enrolling in a tobacco cessation program

% of Tobacco Quitline callers that quit smoking

Reporting Progress
How are we sharing our progress among staff and with partners?
The Performance Dashboard is used to share progress on
measures and targets.

Quality Improvement/LEAN
How can we do better to meet our targets?
Using quality improvement methods such as
LEAN and Plan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA)
can lead to improvements

Using a Lean process the Lead Program examined how to improve processing manual child lead results and move to a fully automated system. They successfully reduced the time it takes to share blood lead results with caseworkers, who can then work with children and families more rapidly to address their health issues.

July 2016