The Public Health Foundation (PHF) is dedicated to recognizing health departments' outsanding work in improving the quality and performance of public health practice. PHF is collecting and promoting stories from state, tribal, local, and territorial health departments that have utilized performance management systems and/or quality improvement (QI) tools to improve the health of their communities.

Previous examples of stories include the Florida Department of Health’s use of the National Public Health Performance Standard Program (NPHPSP) state public health system assessment to support the development of a new state health improvement plan; the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s use of a performance management system to guide, measure, and improve efficiency and effectiveness of public health services; and the Houston Department of Health and Human Services’ use of QI tools to decrease customer wait-time when obtaining a birth or death certificate.

PHF seeks stories from health departments that meet the following criteria:

1. Have achieved measurable outcomes in one of the following ways:

• Implementing performance improvement activities as a result of completing a NPHPSP assessment. 
• Utilizing a performance management system to ensure the right practices are in place to improve performance in public health services. 
• Completing a QI project in a programmatic area and achieving measurable results.

2. Are able to provide a program overview and background description, as well as details on measureable outcomes associated with the initiative.

3. Are willing to have the story shared with the broader public health community. 

Please submit story details to PHF_Resources@phf.org. Stories meeting the criteria above will be profiled by PHF (e.g., summarized on the PHF Pulse Blog, shared in PHF E-News, highlighted at conferences) to provide exposure on a national level and share results broadly.