Introduction
The Regional Quality Improvement (QI) Hub at The Ohio State University is working in collaboration with state and academic partners to create a QI training system housed within the OSU College of Medicine. The initiative seeks to support QI operational infrastructure within the OSU system and in the Central Ohio region. OSU works in collaboration with primary care sites, managed care organizations, community partners, and patients with the goal of improving health outcomes for adult patients. The first project focuses on hypertension with the goal of expanding to additional chronic disease diagnoses in the future. https://u.osu.edu/qihubresources/
Our Team
Our Hub is comprised of healthcare providers, quality improvement experts, researchers, social workers, and patient advocates.
Catherine Quatman-Yates, PT, DPT, PhD
OSU QI Hub Lead
Riley Summers, MPH
Project Manager and Assistant
Najhee Purdy, MPH
Project Manager and Assistant
Kate Brubaker, ATC
Project Manager and Assistant
Lauren Teuschler, MEd
Education Lead and Support
Casey Rinehart, MA, MS
Education Lead and Support
Robbie McCord, MS, MLT
Education Lead and Support
Quality Improvement
Our team uses the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Model for Improvement to guide our quality improvement efforts. In addition to supporting clinic-level efforts, we have prioritized a system-level approach to properly engage leadership, promote sustainability, and strengthen support for the initiative. Our goal is to align and amplify the quality improvement priorities of Central Ohio health systems, particularly in addressing chronic conditions.
Focus Areas
Our current focus area is on hypertension control. High blood pressure is a leading cause of stroke, heart disease, and other health conditions. Hypertension impacts a large percentage of adults; however, many people don’t know that they have high blood pressure. Our team is focused on increasing blood pressure recheck reliability to accurately identify hypertensive patients, engaging clinics in the utilization of proper blood pressure measurement techniques to ensure accurate readings, and improving patient access to home blood pressure monitoring.
In addition to clinic activities, our team is actively engaging community organizations and patients in our work. We are partnering with the Healthy Community Center in Central Ohio in support of their healthy lifestyle events and by providing health education resources. We have also engaged with the Columbus Metropolitan Libraries to provide health education materials for adults from communities across Central Ohio. To ensure our work is patient centered and educational materials are accessible, we routinely conduct phone interviews to obtain patient perspectives and feedback.
