The Dare County Department of Health and Human Services has two committees working toward continuous quality improvement and reaccreditation, but they have very different approaches and responsibilities. Both the Continuous Readiness Committee (CRC) and the Quality Improvement Council (QIC) have important roles in quality and culture but their roles are very different. For instance the CRC is made up mostly of management team members and program managers with a focus on meeting standards while the QIC is staff based looking at ways to improve overall quality of services and addresses areas identified as opportunities for improvement.
The CRC provides oversight for operations related to the North Carolina Local Health Department accreditation board benchmarks and related regulatory standards. CRC members are assigned accreditation activities and have the responsibilities of collecting and submitting evidence either directly into the dashboard or to the Agency’s Accreditation Coordinator (AAC). The CRC is committed to completing, tracking, and maintaining activities and processes in preparation for the agency reaccreditation. It is also the role of this group to provide an understanding to all staff about why accreditation is important and how to ensure quality on a continual basis.
The purpose of the QIC is to provide a forum for staff representatives from all areas of the DCDHHS to initiate, implement and support continuous quality improvement. The QIC reviews bright ideas submissions, suggested QI projects, review reports from QI teams, make QI assignments, establish QI teams, prepare and make reports for the leadership team. The QIC oversees QI projects within the DCDHHS. The QIC supports agency activities to enhance the overall QI culture of the department. The QIC assists with assessing culture annually and making recommendations to improve culture. The QIC also reviews all survey data related to the agency’s satisfaction and feedback from staff including but not limited to client satisfaction survey reports, community input survey reports, staff feedback on supervisors reports, and annual culture assessment reports.
Both of these groups have critical roles in meeting standards and improving quality. Another thing they have in common is that they are both chaired by the AAC. The ACC ensures that the groups stay goal orientated and data driven. The ACC also provide guidance, updates, deadlines and assistance with every step in the accreditation process as well as quality improvement projects. This united approach has proven very effective for our agency to empower staff and ensure accountability.
Continuous Readiness Charter
Quality Improvement Council Charter
For more information contact Laura Williangham, AAC at lauraw@darenc.com