National Quality Forum

In the fall of 2014, the Michigan Health Improvement Alliance, Inc. (MiHIA) was selected as 1 of 10 groups nation-wide to implement and test the National Quality Forum's Guide for Community Action (or Guide). This handbook was designed to support communities in their journey towards better health. Click here to read more about the selection announcement.

 

What is The Guide?

The Guide’s purpose is to support individuals and groups working together at all levels — local, state and national — to successfully promote and improve population health over time. The Guide encourages thinking of population health improvement work as a long-term initiative involving many types of organizations and groups across a region and at multiple levels, and as a team effort in which people take actions that, in some cases, fundamentally change how things are done. In other words, the Guide describes what it takes to make lasting improvements in population health.

The content in the Guide is based on evidence and expert guidance about what works to improve population health. This first version of the Guide — version 1.0 — includes questions, because more understanding is needed about certain topics. For example:

• The key elements listed in this Guide were chosen after researching the issues and gathering expert opinion. These 10 elements are ready for attention and comment, and practical testing by groups directly involved in population health improvement.

• The measures, data, tools, and other resources listed in this Guide were identified through an environmental scan14 and suggestions from experts. With reactions and ideas from groups working to improve population health in the field, these lists will be refined to focus on the most useful, helpful items.

• Similarly, practical suggestions and input about the resources included in this Guide will inform stakeholders regarding ways in which these resources can be improved or expanded to be more useful for population health improvement.

 

Community Action Guide 2.0

The National Quality Forum has released its Community Action Guide 2.0. This version builds upon the Action Guide 1.0, incorporating feedback from 10 Field Testing Groups from around the country, including MiHIA, who are currently engaged in population health improvement work. The updated, version 2.0 of the Guide, incorporates experiences from 10 field testing groups from around the country in order to make the information more relevant and actionable from the perspective of multi-sector partnerships who are actually doing this type of work.