Summary

Benchmarks’ members and stakeholders work across health platforms and are able to identify gaps where quality can be enhanced and efficiencies garnered. The multitude of people who provide services, do so through various systems, including but not limited to: physical and behavioral health, intellectual and developmental disability services, substance use services, child welfare, and juvenile justice, requiring the professionals of different sectors to work together in an integrated fashion. As a result, Benchmarks’ Center for Quality Integration (CQI) was created to develop tests of change and training, engage in data analytics, and share that knowledge with our members, communities, to influence policy, and produce legislation.

Benchmarks’ Center for Quality Integration (CQI) works with our members and local communities to help to improve the lives and well-being for the people in North Carolina. Through collaboration, research and development (R&D) and training, we provide knowledge, skills, and innovation to identify new and creative ways to enhance the service delivery system and to help meet the needs expressed by local communities by drawing on and developing existing resources. Our work with members and communities focuses on all areas of health including physical, social, and mental health realizing that prevention is cost effective and better for our citizens.

CQI seeks to be a clearinghouse of information and resources for innovative healthcare work in North Carolina. We focus on decreasing duplicitous work, ensuring the best use of our limited resources and their appreciation allocation. CQI affords the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) the opportunity to have access to a cross system of ideas and professionals who use their various lenses to consider the implications of proposals.

CQI prides itself in innovative solutions that are both sustainable and replicable, realizing that in order to drive systems, new concepts must have the capacity to be implemented and funded.

Areas of Focus

Every individual is a unique balance of physical, mental and social health that must have integrated care that respects all health, builds resilient community members, and helps to reach optimal relational health.   This leads to thriving communities in which the sum is greater than its parts, The Center focuses on the following:

• Systems Integration and Innovation
• Social Determinants of Health Research
• Trauma and Resiliency-Informed Care Implementation
• High Level Outcome Identifiers (including value-based goals and contracting)
• Health for Marginalized Populations (treatment for adult prison population)
• PRTF and Child Residential Redesign
• Opioid Epidemic Solutions
• Prevention Services Research and Design
• Child Welfare Transformation, including FFPSA
• Medicaid Transformation including Behavioral Health Services, Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Use
• Workforce Development and Sustainability
• Maternal Health
• Conception, Birth to Three
• NC Waiver Expertise -1115, 1915 (b), 1915 (c)
• Evidenced-Based and Informed Practices
• Training Development and Delivery (face to face and online)
• Implementation Science Research and Planning
• Strategic Planning
• Health System Research and Analysis
• Health Information Exchange (HIE) and Electronic Health Record (EHR) Analytics
• Grant Writing and Reporting
• Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)
• Return on Investment (ROI) Analytics
• National Research and Exploration for Improvement