Health departments and national public health organizations have been using our strategic planning tools and assistance to focus programs, policies, resources, and actions on desired outcomes. They have been using strategy maps and other tools from our Community Balanced Scorecard (CBSC) methodology to create powerful alignment that makes plans truly strategic, and helps employees and partners find their roles so they can collaborate successfully in implementing the plans. What’s more, our tools also align department strategies with the essential services of public health and the domains of the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB). This makes them ideal for creating strategic plans that satisfy a prerequisite of accreditation and for putting in place a sound basis for meeting PHAB standards. They can also help departments develop or drive performance management systems. When health departments implement the plans, they not only make progress toward achieving strategic goals, they also generate improvements that will help them document how they are meeting PHAB standards.
Project Highlights
- We partnered with the Public Health Foundation (PHF) to provide strategic planning training to the Alabama Department of Public Health focused on planning systems improvements including quality improvement and performance management systems to support accreditation preparation.
- We partnered with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) to assist the Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) in strategic planning and accreditation preparation using our CBSC strategy mapping approach. DPH adopted a “top level” map aligned with PHAB domains for the division as a whole. And we helped DPH develop a strategy map to reduce obesity as their first division-wide issue-specific strategy. DPH is now deploying our CBSC approach for the rest of its strategic plan and its performance management system, for which it is using our Triple Loop Learning Model.
- ASTHO re-engaged the RTM Team to use our CBSC tools to provide strategic planning and accreditation preparation assistance to the New York State Office of Public Health (OPH). OPH’s Center for Environmental Health developed a “Healthy Housing” strategy and a cross-functional OPH team created a “Public Health Information Management” strategy. These very different strategies used the same top-level strategy map that aligns them with each other and the PHAB domains. Both strategies cut across disciplines and engage state, local, and private partners.
- We have worked with the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) MAPP Team, and the MAPP Work Group of local health officials, CDC staff, and others from across the country, to use our CBSC tools, starting with strategy maps, for strategic planning to improve MAPP from the national to local levels. The strategies and potential performance measures we have helped them develop are the first building blocks of a MAPP balanced scorecard.
- Also for NACCHO, we developed a strategic road mapping methodology, derived from our CBSC strategy maps, and trained leaders of Medical Reserve Corps Units (MRCs) from communities across the country to use it.
- In another NACCHO project, we facilitated the entire national NACCHO Preparedness Team in developing a strategy map as part of its strategic planning process.
- With our partner the KH consulting group, we developed balanced scorecards for Los Angeles County Public Health as part of a strategic planning project, including scorecards for strategies that depend on numerous partnerships with community organizations to improve public health outcomes and reduce disparities.
- For the U.S. CDC’s National Public Health Performance Standards Program and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Multistate Learning Collaborative, we partnered with the Public Health Foundation to provide strategic planning training based on our CBSC methodology to local, state, and federal public health officials from across the country.
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Additional Resources
- Strategic Accreditation Preparation (PDF) is a short piece describing how CBSC tools can be used to achieve two of the three prerequisites for public health department accreditation.
- Our 2011 APHA conference presentation: “Use CBSCs to Mesh Strategic Planning, Health Improvement Planning, and Accreditation“
- Briefing paper (PDF) “Community Balanced Scorecards for Strategic Public Health Improvement,” by Paul Epstein and Alina Simone.
- Community Health Strategy Management: Adding Value One Step at a Time (PDF) describes a step-by-step approach for implementing CBSC tools, enabling communities or states with limited resources to benefit from each step along the way without making a commitment in advance to building a complete system.
- Health Improvement Planning and Implementation using CBSC tools
- Three chapters by Results That Matter Team members in The Public Health Quality Improvement Handbook of the Public Health Foundation and American Society for Quality
Selected Clients
- Alabama Department of Public Health
- Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
- Delaware Division of Public Health
- Los Angeles County Public Health
- National Association of County and City Health Officials
- New York State Department of Health
- Public Health Foundation