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LCHD awarded 4 new grants in 2015
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10/02/2015 LICKING COUNTY, OHIO – The Licking County Health Department has been awarded four new grants this year, allowing Public Health officials to provide more, improved services to the community. These grants focus on quality improvement and development of the department’s campus.
“We work hard to provide the best possible service to the community and these grants will allow us to go the extra mile for our customers, when otherwise we might not be able to,” Licking County Health Commissioner Joe Ebel.
Here is a summary of each award and its focuses:
First is the Ohio Developmental Services Agency’s (ODSA) Local Government Efficiency Program, Public Health Medical Billing Improvement Project. The department has received $22,506 from ODSA to implement Lean Six Sigma techniques and tools designed to improve the medical billing process. The Lean concepts and tools are designed to reduce costs, streamline workflows and reduce waste.
Using Lean concepts will relieve Health Department resources, allowing time to be invested towards supporting services to customers. Consultants trained in Lean concepts will work with the department to identify areas where LCHD can be more efficient.
Second is the ODSA’s Local Government Efficiency Program, Community Health Assessment (CHA) Standardization Project. LCHD has received $55,748 from ODSA to collaborate with Knox County Health Department, Perry County Health Department and Zanesville Muskingum County Health Department for the standardization of the Community Health Assessment across counties. The CHA is a collection of data from reports and surveys of a community that reflect a community’s overall health. The primary focus of this project will be to analyze the current process of conducting a CHA in order to identify a core set of public health issues common to each county’s community.
Consultants from the Muskingum Valley Educational Services Center and The Ohio State University’s Center for Public Health Practice will use quality improvement, and Lean Six Sigma techniques and tools, to identify and develop comparable data collection techniques for core information that will be reported in each community’s CHA. This will reduce redundancies and create comparable regional health data.
Third is the LeanOhio Boot Camp: Transforming the Public Sector grant. LCHD will be hosting a LeanOhio Boot Camp in November 2015 where authorized trainers from the Muskingum Valley Educational Services Center will teach Health Department staff how to use Lean methods and tools for quality improvement purposes. This five-day training teaches participants useful knowledge and skills to make government simpler, faster and less costly. There are still seats available for non-Health Department employees interested in attending. For those interested in attending this training, please refer to the Muskingum Valley Educational Services Center website for more information, at https://www.mvesc.org/435.
After taking ownership of the department’s historic building and campus January 2015, the Health Department began looking for ways to develop the property for the community. As a result, this fourth grant is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’ Cooperative Agreement Award. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’ and LCHD’s initial project is a wildlife habitat improvement project. Approximately five acres of the Health Department campus will be naturalized and restored as a result of this partnership. This project will provide unique habitats for pollinators and other local wildlife, but more importantly, diverse educational opportunities for the local community. Following the completion of the project, LCHD plans to install educational signage focusing on the environmental impact of reforestation, wildlife habitat creation, and naturalization.
The majority of the restored acres will be planted with a diverse mix of native hardwood trees. Additionally, several small pollinator plots will be created to provide habitats for pollinators, including monarch butterflies. According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, monarch populations have declined alarmingly in recent years, with the lowest recorded wintering population in Mexico during 2013-2014. Experts estimate that the eastern populations of monarch butterflies, including those in Ohio, have diminished by 90 percent over the last 20 years, leading to the need to create and repopulate pollinator plots to sustain the species.
For more information about grant opportunities and partnering with LCHD for community projects, call (740) 349-6535.
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