Lessons Learned From Measuring Return on Investment in Public Health Quality Improvement Initiatives.

Context: The Center for Public Health Quality and its partner, North Carolina State University Industrial Extension Service, used 2 existing, yet similar quality improvement (QI) programs to provide technical assistance to conduct return on investment (ROI) and economic impact (EI) analyses so that they could estimate their QI projects' financial impacts.

Objectives: The objectives of this article are to describe the approach and ongoing learning from applying ROI and EI analyses to public health QI projects and analyze the results in order to illustrate ROI potential in public health.

Design: We used a before-after study design for all ROI and EI analyses, spanning a 3-year time period.

Advancing Quality Improvement in Public Health Departments Through a Statewide Training Program.

Objectives: To examine the effectiveness of an ongoing statewide public health quality improvement training program (PH QI 101) among 4 cohorts of training participants.

Design: We conducted a mixed-method evaluation of the PH QI 101 training program that included measures of participants' satisfaction, learning, behavior change, and participants' translation and spread to their organizations what was learned. Data analysis included descriptive quantitative statistics and qualitative reviews.

Quality improvement in North Carolina's public health departments.

North Carolina has been a leader in the application of quality improvement (QI) to public health practice. Over the past decade, numerous developments have served to accelerate the adoption of QI in North Carolina's local health departments. The outstanding results from the widespread application of QI should help North Carolina to become a healthier state.