Mi-CHEC Goals
The primary goal of Mi-CHEC is to develop a culture of improving health equity among the member institutions of the collaborative. By identifying potential health inequities, verifying them through a rigorous process and establishing quality improvement efforts to address them, Mi-CHEC plans to build an environment where the culture of health equity for children forms a baseline in the delivery of care in Michigan. The leadership of Mi-CHEC has defined a three-part plan with the following priorities to help initiate this effort ...
1. Develop a common structure for continuous quality improvement among the partnering health systems:
• Identify current quality improvement systems and processes at each health system and determine how they can be integrated into a network approach.
• Develop a standardized mechanism for all partner sites to investigate potential areas of inequity within each of their health systems.
• Create protocols for consistent data collection and analyses, implementation of improvement strategies, and assessment of improvement.
2. Explore potential health inequities across the collaborative:
• Each health system will identify potential equity issues within their own systems using established protocols.
• Through collaborative meetings, partner health systems will share and discuss the issues identified for potential equity improvement areas.
• The collaborative will prioritize and determine one to three equity improvement areas to address during the next 12 months.
• Once common equity improvement areas are identified, the health systems will participate in design meetings to jointly develop a quality improvement strategy – including aims, measurement strategies and change theories – to address each identified equity improvement opportunity.
3. Implement improvement plans in at least one equity area:
• Each health system will implement the improvement plan at their institution.
• The utility of data collection and improvement processes will be assessed.
• Modifications of improvement tools and processes will be made individually or collectively as necessary.
• Quality teams at each health system will be supported by the coordinating center through coaching calls, monthly collaborative webinars, and quarterly in-person learning sessions to promote cross learning around improvement progress and feedback on measurement strategies.