Assessing Your Current Culture

Regular QI self-assessments provide a foundation for understanding current culture, identifying strengths and areas for improvement, and prioritizing strategies for the QI plan. Discussion generated by completing an assessment provides significant insights into organizational performance and alignment of organization-wide initiatives.

NACCHO offers two options for assessing an organization’s current culture of quality – the Organizational Culture of Quality Self-Assessment Tool Version 2.0 (QI SAT 2.0) and QI Roadmap to a Culture of Quality website. Both tools are based on the six foundational elements of a culture of quality. Agencies with limited experience or resources to devote to a formal assessment may choose to walk through the phases of the QI Roadmap website to conduct a high-level assessment prior to implementing a more formal and comprehensive assessment process.

QI Self-Assessment Tool 2.0

The NACCHO QI SAT 2.0 provides deep insight into an organization’s maturity across the six foundational elements and 14 sub-elements. This instrument engages the entire organization in the assessment process and provides numeric scoring for each foundational element in the QI Roadmap. Benefits of using this instrument include the ability to monitor scores over time, increased validity of scores, engagement of all staff in the process, and a formal toolkit to assist with administration of the assessment.

The QI SAT 2.0 Toolkit contains the following resources:

NACCHO QI SAT Facilitator Guide – Offers resources and guidance for those leading the administration of the QI SAT.
NACCHO QI SAT 2.0 Leadership Version – This instrument includes 59 diagnostic statements and is intended for agency level senior leadership (e.g., Health Director, department heads, executive team) and QI leaders (e.g., QI Committee) to assess the spread and formality of QI across the agency. Transition strategies are offered based on assessment scores.
NACCHO QI SAT 2.0 Staff version – This instrument includes 27 of the 59 diagnostic statements presented in the leadership version, and is intended for all other staff not engaged in the leadership assessment (e.g., middle managers and frontline staff).
QI SAT 2.0 Scoring summary – An Excel file to input leadership and staff scores across all sub-elements

Additionally, the following slide decks referenced in the Facilitator guide are available to orient staff to the assessment process and support facilitation of dialogue around QI culture:

QI Culture Staff Orientation Slides – Modifiable slides – including content, talking points, and facilitator instructions – to orient staff to the agency’s QI assessment and QI concepts covered in the SAT.
QI Leadership Assessment Group Scoring Slides – Modifiable slides to assist with the facilitation of a group scoring process, including discussion questions and suggested scoring processes.

Access the QI Self-Assessment Tool Version 2.0 here.

In 2013, the original QI SAT was developed for NACCHO by Continual Impact LLC. In 2018, NACCHO revised the original instrument with input from health department practitioners, QI subject matter experts, and the field at large. The QI SAT 1.0 can be accessed here.