The Office of School and Adolescent Health and Envision New Mexico are partnering to implement a Quality Improvement Initiative beginning with 30 school-based health centers located throughout the state. The purpose of the initiative is to enhance performance and quality of school-based health care, as well as to improve outcomes and reports requested from the Governor, legislators, school boards and superintendents and interested community members.    

Participation in this initiative is included in your FY ’08 Contract under Quality Assurance.  We will host a workshop to introduce the initiative and describe the process that will be used throughout the year to provide training, technical assistance, how we will monitor and report progress.  Your workshop location site was sent to you in early August.  To find your workshop location site please contact Yolanda Cordova, Director, Office of School and Adolescent Health.

Program Description

Thirty of the 68 NM SBHCs will enroll in one of three Quality Improvement (QI) Initiatives beginning this fall which will include: 1) Prevention and management of overweight and obesity; 2) Behavioral health integration and suicide prevention and, 3) Infrastructure improvement. In addition six SBHCs will enroll in the Telehealth-based “Teen Lifestyle Change” (TLC) program which is a ten-week behavior change program designed to promote good nutrition and improved fitness.

The 2007 – 2008 SBHC QI Initiative Learning Collaborative training will include core skills for healthcare providers such as: Motivational Interviewing, School Wellness policy advocacy, implementation of clinical best practices, and QI methods. Regional trainings, site visits, and technical assistance will be given to each site. Envision NM will be using telemedicine links with rural SBHC sites as well as an e-meeting type program that will allow sites to interact with each other, sharing data and resources via their office computer.