The Diamond Project: A Quality Improvement Model for Adopting Shared Service Delivery in the Washington Vaccines for Children Program.

Context: Increasing federal requirements with no change in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention budget creates an unsustainable delivery model between states and their local counterparts for programs like Vaccines for Children (VFC). Project: The Washington State Department of Health collaborated with the Washington Association of Local Public Health Officials to identify how best to improve the quality of the VFC program. Approach: Utilizing Quality improvement and Lean Six Sigma methods, the project team was able to adopt a new shared-service delivery model to improve the quality of the VFC program in Washington State. Discussion: Through utilization of quality improvement methods and Lean methodology Washington State Department of Health identified recommendations to adopt a shared-service delivery and implemented those changes.

Accountable Communities of Health, Health and Social Service Systems Alignment, and Population Health: Eastern Washington State, 2017-2019.

Objectives. To assess health system transformation and alignment in the Better Health Together (BHT) accountable community of health (ACH) region of Eastern Washington.Methods. This trend study leveraged cross-sectional data collected in 2017 and 2019 in Eastern Washington. A total of 165 responses from individuals representing 112 organizations were collected in 2017, and 211 responses from individuals representing 92 organizations were collected in 2019. More than one third (38%; n = 35 organizations) of cases overlapped between the 2 samples. Implementation of the ACH model is the exposure. Outcomes of interest included indicators of system transformation and alignment.Results. Organizations throughout BHT's region became more engaged, less siloed, and better connected from 2017 to 2019. At least some of the increased connectivity observed was directly attributable to the role BHT played in facilitating the creation or maintenance of interorganizational relationships across Eastern Washington.Conclusions. The ACH model is a promising approach to aligning health and social service systems for population health improvement. Evidence shows that ACH organizations can serve as trusted conveners able to facilitate interorganizational relationships across sectors.