Quality Initiatives Division

The Quality Initiatives Division (QID) supports the Colorado Community Health Centers (CHCs) in providing high quality health care to people in need through practice transformation and capacity building. QID helps CHCs improve their care delivery through ongoing practice facilitation and training in quality improvement. The Quality Initiatives Division has staff who work with CHCs on the following:

Practice Transformation: CCHN provides technical assistance to facilitate continued transformation around components of Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH). Practice facilitators focus on enhancing the following efforts of CHCs: team-based care, patient engagement, social determinants of health, data for quality improvement, oral health integration, behavioral health integration, care coordination, and innovative technologies.

Cancer Screening: CCHN is funded to improve CHC patient’s health by increasing access to breast health services, provide technical assistance to Colorado CHCs for detection and prevention of breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening, and to increase human papillomavirus vaccination rates in Latina women ages 19-26 years old to reduce the number of instances of cervical cancer in Colorado.

Quality Improvement Peer Group: The Quality Improvement (QI) Peer Group is comprised of Quality Directors and QI leaders at CHCs. QID convenes this group quarterly to provide a venue for discussing promising practices, innovations, regulations, and challenges across CHC’s quality efforts.

Emergency Preparedness: CCHN supports CHCs with emergency preparedness technical assistance, training planning, exercises, communication and disaster-coordination.

Peer Networks: In order to support improvement projects, QID coordinates formal peer learning networks for CHC Medical Directors, Dental Directors, and Behavioral Health Directors to encourage shared learning and problem solving and to identify and develop best practices.

Oral Health: CCHN provides targeted training, technical assistance, and collaborative learning opportunities to support CHCs’ efforts to further integrate oral health into the care delivery system and to strengthen the oral health programs in CHCs.

Special Populations: QID provides CHCs with training and technical assistance to improve the quality of care for special populations including agricultural workers, patients in public housing, homeless patients, HIV/AIDS patients, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) patients.

ECHO Colorado: Extension for Community Health Outcomes (ECHO) Colorado is an initiative dedicated to increasing everyone’s capacity to manage complex health issues by using technology to bring professionals from all disciplines together to share knowledge, experiences, and viewpoints with one another. It was originally founded to connect medical specialists to geographically isolated primary care providers concerning specific diseases, like Hepatitis C or asthma. Expanding medical expertise for these practitioners results in more treatment options available at lower costs for rural and underserved populations. Learn more about ECHO Colorado.

For additional information on CCHN’s QID activities, please contact:

Jessica Sanchez, Vice President of Quality and Operations

Holly Kingsbury, Quality Initiatives Director

Taylor Miranda Thompson, Senior Quality Initiatives Manager

Mike Marosits, Quality Initiatives Manager

Emily Bauer, Quality Initiatives Specialist

Alexis Miller, Quality Initiatives Specialist