My update since I left the Improve Group: Hi everyone! It has been too long since I wrote a blog on the Improve Group website! After three years of working with my wonderful colleagues at IG, I was fortunate to be offered an internship position with a program called Steps to a Healthier MN at the Minnesota Department of Health. After completing my Master’s in Public Health this past December, I was hired with Steps as a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist (putting my evaluation background to work!). Since I began at MDH, I have primarily worked on legislation called the Statewide Health Improvement Plan (SHIP). SHIP is essentially an expanded version of Steps and is intended to improve the lives and health of all Minnesotans.

Here’s a quick description.

SHIP was developed in response to the 2007 Legislature’s request to develop a plan for statewide health promotion to address the rising cost of health and health care in our state. SHIP will help Minnesotans live longer, better, healthier lives by reducing the burden of chronic diseases by addressing physical inactivity, poor nutrition, and tobacco use. After being presented to numerous legislative committees and the Governor’s Health Care Transformation Task Force this past fall, SHIP was written into legislative bills calling for overall health care reform in Minnesota. The overall health care reform legislation focuses on improving the affordability, accessibility, and quality of health care as well as improving the health of Minnesotans.

At the end of the legislative session in mid-May, Governor Pawlenty and the 2008 Minnesota State Legislature came to an agreement on the health reform bill. Excitingly, their agreement includes initial funding for SHIP! The funding ($20 million in 2010 and $27 million in 2011) is one of the most substantial contributions a state government has ever made to population based chronic disease prevention ever so I am absolutely thrilled to be part of such an amazing program.

We will spend the next year planning for implementation until funding begins in July 2009. I will happily send updates but if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at brooke.ahlquist@health.state.mn.us.

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Nathan Salzl interned with the Improve Group from Spring - Fall 2006. We loved his enthusiasm for evaluation--and his background in the arts helped us significantly in our work with several arts organizations. Here is an update from Nathan:

I am still enjoying every day at United Way 2-1-1. This fall we are in the trenches with accreditation, documenting and updating all of our processes and procedures to become a nationally accredited call center. It's very challenging to answer all of the hundreds of questions in such an organized way. The most exciting part of this process is working with our database programmers to design some new and innovative software that will allow us to collect the data we need, using fields integrated into the call center that assist the Information and Referral Specialist with the natural flow and progression of taking a call and meeting the callers needs. It's interesting to think of data collection from an operations perspective, rather than a survey sample. It's also really fun to work with the programmers and after months of discussion and planning see the products come to the computer screen. It's a real collaboration of skills and understanding. So there's never a dull day at United Way, and I hope to continue learning and growing here as long as I can!

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