Making it Count: Building a Quality Improvement Program from the Ground Up
Creating a quality improvement (QI) program requires time, dedication, and a long-term vision for how QI efforts can positively influence patient outcomes and care team experiences. Many programs falter or fail to meet their objectives because an organization does not share a collective commitment to making quality a priority. In this session, attendees will hear the story of how Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics built consensus across all teams to focus on quality, including setting priority measures, establishing data governance protocols, and ensuring constant transparency. As the team has overcome the many barriers inherent to building a sustainable quality program, they have seen remarkable results; from hitting their colorectal cancer screening target for the first time to building a new process for cervical cancer screening, Santa Barbara is reaping the rewards a robust QI program can bring. Hear from the organization’s Chief Quality Officer and Quality Manager on how they achieved these results and the lessons learned along the way.
By participating in this session, attendees will be able to:
- Learn the core principles of a strong QI program
- Hear strategies for how to make a QI program sustainable
- Identify opportunities for measure improvement, specifically colorectal and cervical cancer screening
Presented by Ceylan Ozkan, MSN, RN, Chief Quality Officer from Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, Elise Hill, Quality Manager from Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, and Emily Holzman, Director of Clinical Transformation, from Azara Healthcare.
Early Bird Rates:
$125 for CCALAC Members & Affiliates
$200 for non-members
Instructor Biography:
Ceylan Ozkan, MSN, RN is the Chief Quality Officer at Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, an FQHC serving 20,000 patients across primary care, behavioral health, and dental services. Since earning her Masters in Nursing from UT Austin, she has progressed from staff nurse to leading executive, driving excellence in quality improvement, compliance, and risk mitigation. She is passionate about enhancing healthcare outcomes for all people.
Elise Hill is the Quality Manager at Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics, an FQHC serving 20,000 patients across primary care, behavioral health, and dental services. While earning her Bachelor of Science in Psychological and Brain Sciences from UC Santa Barbara, she contributed to research on success factors in education. She is now contributing to building and supporting a QI program, with a focus on data visualization, communication, and staff engagement in the quality improvement process.
Emily Holzman is a Director of Clinical Transformation at Azara Healthcare. She earned her BA in International Relations from the University of British Columbia, after which she joined the Peace Corps for service in Guyana. She moved into healthcare IT when she joined Athenahealth’s Population Health team and in 2018 Emily joined the team at Azara Healthcare to focus on working with primary care practices and networks. Emily earned her NCQA PCMH CCE in 2018 and completed her MPH in 2023.