Benton Foundation

Q-sort methodology is an underutilized tool for differentiating among multiple priority measures. The authors describe steps to identify, delimit, and sort potential health measures and use selected priority measures to establish an overall agenda for continuous quality improvement (CQI) activities within learning collaboratives. Through an iterative process, the authors vetted a list of potential child and adolescent health measures. Multiple stakeholders, including payers, direct care providers, and organizational representatives sorted and prioritized measures, using Q-methodology. Q-methodology provided the Alabama Child Health Improvement Alliance (ACHIA) an objective and rigorous approach to system improvement. Selected priority measures were used to design learning collaboratives. An open dialogue among stakeholders about state health priorities spurred greater organizational buy-in for ACHIA and increased its credibility as a statewide provider of learning collaboratives. The integrated processes of Q-sort methodology, learning collaboratives, and CQI offer a practical yet innovative way to identify and prioritize state measures for child and adolescent health and establish a learning agenda for targeted quality improvement activities.

As the legendary basketball coach John Wooden once said, “It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make bigger things happen.” With this thought in mind, I would like to ask you to think about something you have probably never paid much attention to because you might have viewed it as insignificant or as a simple matter of preference.

Have you ever made a mistake, because you were in a hurry? For example, have you ever rushed to get an email sent and, after it had been sent and you re-read it, you caught grammatical errors that you had missed because you were in a rush. Of course you have.

As a food safety or compliance professional, a common action that you will take during the course of your career will be to ask someone to follow-up on a practice or condition that you have found to be out-of-compliance without being able to go back and observe if the situation has been corrected for yourself. When identifying an issue that needs to be corrected, whether its during an informal tour of a food manufacturing site or a more formally conducted food safety audit, which choice do you think is ‘most’ effective at getting someone to correct the issue?

Have you ever paused to consider how different smells, odors, and aromas affect us? If you are like most people, the smell of garbage, sewage, or rotten fruit can elicit a pretty strong response of disgust. On the other hand, most people enjoy the smell of freshly baked bread, floral scents, and spring rain. Think about these scents and the emotions they conjure. How do they make you feel?

Excerpt To the editor: Recent editorials and letters in your journal on geriatric problems have centered on speciality training for future physicians. All have neglected what needs to be done now a...