title: Lessons learned from building a culture and infrastructure for continuous quality improvement at Cabarrus Health Alliance.
abstract: This case study describes a local public health agency's multiyear effort to establish an infrastructure and organizational culture for continuous quality improvement, using data from interviews with the agency's senior leaders, managers, and frontline staff. Lessons learned include the importance of setting stretch goals, engaging leaders at all levels of the organization, empowering frontline staff to make changes, providing quality improvement training for staff and leaders, starting with small projects first, spreading quality improvement efforts to involve all parts of the agency, and sustaining momentum by creating a supporting infrastructure for continuous quality improvement and continually initiating new projects.
authors.affiliation: North Carolina Center for Public Health Quality, Raleigh, North Carolina 27619, USA.
authors.forename: Greg D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Randolph
authors.forename: Cappie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stanley
authors.forename: Bobbie
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rowe
authors.forename: Sara E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Massie
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cornett
authors.forename: Lisa Macon
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Harrison
authors.forename: C Suzanne
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Lea
mesh_terms: D018672:Community Health Planning / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D009657:North Carolina; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D015279:Organizational Culture; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D011635:Public Health Administration; D017749:Total Quality Management