California Health Care Improvement Projects (CHIPs) are designed by CHCF Health Care Leadership Program participants with the goal of addressing meaningful challenges or opportunities in health care.
Browse CHIPs to leverage the work of CHCF alumni and find opportunities to collaborate in order to improve health for Californians.
California Health Care Improvement Projects (CHIP)
Integrating Care Between Behavioral Health and Outpatient Pediatrics
Project Goal: To pilot an embedded behavioral health treatment service in pediatrics that will support a patient’s ability to access mental health services in a timely and convenient manner – and ultimately lead to better mental health outcomes.
CRIS CONNECT Bridging the Gap After a Behavioral Health Crisis
Project Goal: To decrease the repeat utilization of high cost services and poor outcomes for patients using the behavioral health crisis system.
Improving Physicians Engagement at Riverside University Health System
Project Goal: To improve communication between Riverside University Health System (RUHS) administration and front-line physicians as a way to increase physician satisfaction.
Tackling the Opioid Crisis in El Dorado County
Project Goal: To increase county wide medication-assisted treatment capacity, promote safer prescribing practices, and implement harm reduction services to decrease overdose death in El Dorado County.
A Comprehensive Program to Provide Consistent Education to Pediatric Hospitals
Project Goal: To develop a comprehensive and consistent pediatric hospital based services (Pedi HBS) professional development program that supports development of core competencies in Pediatric Hospital Medicine, aligns local and regional performance improvement goals, and will give Pedi HBS...
Surgical Backlog Reduction via Scheduling Improvements and Use of an Outpatient Procedure Suite
Project Goal: To reduce operating room backlog for elective cases by implementing surgery scheduling efficiencies, enhancing monitoring capabilities and expanding an outpatient procedure suite to improve surgical access.
Improving Patient Access Time For Urgent Referrals To Specialists
Project Goal: To improve specialty physician access time for urgent referrals to less than 4 days.
Low Threshold Access to Buprenorphine Treatment within Permanent Supportive Housing
Project Goal: To create a proposal to pilot an accessible treatment model for residents of Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) with opioid use disorders through collaboration with on-site nursing staff.
Meeting Patients Where They Are: The CareMore @ Home Program
Project Goal: To engage complex patients in outpatient care in the field who have high rates of inappropriate use of emergency room and inpatient facilities, but low rates of outpatient clinic care.
Tackling Health Equity by Creating A Payor-Funded Community Doula Program for HealthNet
Project Goal: To reduce the disparities in birth outcomes for African American women in Los Angeles through a pilot program using community based doulas.
Reducing Staff Turnover to Improve Client Care
Project Goal: To improve provider retention rates in order to provide consistent care providers to clients and thus more consistent services to clients overall.
You say “Data”, I say “Data”…
Project Goal: To improve patient outcomes and team satisfaction by getting accurate, consistent, and timely data into the hands of the care teams with the proper data support.
Overcoming the Behavioral Health Workforce Shortage
Project Goal: To increase access to behavioral health services by: (1) expanding the behavioral health provider (BHP) network, (2) using virtual behavioral health (BH) visits, and (3) adding mobile health (m-health) tools through a partnership with a health service technology vendor that...
An Ounce of Prevention: The LADHS Journey to Improve Quality through Efficient Patient Outreach and Engagement
Project Goal: To create a more efficient patient outreach process around common healthcare quality goals. This will improve patient experience and increase clinic staff direct patient care and engagement.
Multi-Division High-Utilizer Case Management Pilot
Project Goal: To analyze Contra Costa County’s 175,708 Medi-Cal eligible county residents as of June 2018 and run models to identify the predictors of avoidable hospital utilization over a 13 month period. Predictors considered are insurance status, race/ethnicity, age, history of detention,...
Primary Care for the Mind: Improving Mental Health Access for Children
Project Goal: 1.To create a program to increase the knowledge and efficacy of UCSF Health Pediatric Network PCPs to diagnose and manage children with mild to moderate ADHD, Depression and Anxiety and to partner in a consultative model of care with Child Psychiatry. 2. Increase access for...
Improved Access to Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Care
Project Goal: To clarify and standardize intake process to improve patient experience at Santa Cruz County Specialty Mental Health.
Cost Savings and a Better Patient Experience: A Win-Win; How 340B Pricing Saved Over $1,000,000/Year
Project Goal: To reduce costs by decreasing the number of patients using outside pharmacies by making it easier for patients to procure their anti-Tumor Necrosis Factor medications at our 340B pharmacies.
Walk with Me: A Patient-Engaged Health Systems Curriculum for Early MD and PA Students
Project Goal: To create a structured course to engage Medical Doctors and Physical Assistants students directly with patients, caregivers, and the health care system. Students will understand patients’ and caregivers’ lived experiences and therefore be more compassionate clinicians and leaders...
Decreasing End-Stage Renal Disease Cost of Care with an End-Stage Renal Disease Specialty Nurse Practitioner Program
Project Goal: To decrease overall cost of care for Landmark End Stage Renal Disease patients and reduce avoidable utilization.
StreetHealth: Improving The Medical Outreach Model to Homeless Encampments
Project Goal: To develop a sustainable model of psychiatric outreach to individuals experiencing homelessness through the provision of psychiatric and substance use medications (medication-assisted treatment) in encampments and improved linkage to community health centers.
Enhanced Staff Training For Challenging Clients In FQHC Settings
Project Goal: Increase clinic staff self efficacy in dealing with disruptive clients, while reducing disruptions and outbursts in the clinic environment by training staff on "Managing Challenging Behaviors".
Decreasing Patient Rooming Time Using a Pre-Visit Telephone Encounter
Project Goal: To decrease the amount of time to room a patient, leading to an increase in provider/patient time spent.
Expanding Access to Medical Nutrition Therapy.
Project Goal: To increase access to Medical Nutrition Therapy.
Sonoma County Hub for Innovation
Project Goal: To investigate gaps in Sonoma County Mental Health services with to create a more stable infrastructure for quality mental health services across the spectrum of care.
Supporting Undocumented Immigrant Families Through Medical Legal Partnerships
Project Goal: Undocumented families will have access to legal support from attorneys to remove barriers to health care, education, housing, and unemployment at all of La Clinica’s School Based Health Centers in Oakland.
Awesome First Impressions For New Patients
Project Goal: To deploy workflows that lower operating costs for a new patient visit and achieve high satisfaction from patients, staff, and providers.
Creating a One-Stop, All Inclusive, Onboarding Center For New Kaiser Permanente Members at The South Sacramento Medical Center
Project Goal: To deliver an exceptional care experience for new members while simultaneously increasing our physicians professional fulfillment with a new member onboarding center that provides personalized and high quality care at a member’s initial visit to our medical center.
Improving the Value of Care for Comprehensive Joint Replacement: Implementing Bundled Payments in San Francisco Health Network
Project Goal: To improve the value of care provided for hip and knee joint replacements through increased coordination of care, preoperative planning, and reduced use of unnecessary post-acute care.
Tokoni: Peer and Culture-Based Interventions to Improve Behavioral Health Outcomes of Pacific Islanders in San Mateo County
Project Goal: Leverage health navigators to reduce barriers for Pacific Islanders seeking behavioral health services.
Mindfulness-Based Medication Assisted Treatment
Project Goal: To increase access to Medication Assisted Treatment resulting in decreased relapse.
Testing a Digital Health Coaching Model to Support Growing Families
Project Goal: To test a virtual coaching model that increases parents’ confidence and access to support from pregnancy through baby’s first year.
Increasing Access to Naloxone to High Risk Patients from Emergency Department
Project Goals: To increase the percentage of patients at the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services Emergency Departments who receive a prescription for naloxone; and improve communication regarding use of naloxone to patients, family and friends.
Identifying a Digital Platform to Improve Access to Psychiatry Consultation in Primary Care
Project Goal: To improve access to psychiatry consultation and to increase the competency and comfort level of Psychiatry Consultation Programs and Behavioral Health Providers in Alameda County’s Federally Qualified Health Centers in delivering behavioral health care to their patients.
Public Health and Correctional Health Collaboration to Prevent Congenital Syphilis in Los Angeles County
Project Goal: To prevent congenital syphilis cases by screening women whose circumstances put them at higher risk of no or late prenatal care and elevated risk of syphilis by conducting the first national pilot of newly Food and Drug Administration approved rapid point-of-care syphilis test in...
Act Together: Increase Employee Engagement with a New Model of Forum Theater Case Conferencing
Project Goal: To develop a sustainable and scalable program that can improve survey measures of employee engagement for all health care staff everywhere.
Texting Members to Bridge Gaps in Care
Project Goal: To improve timely preventative care and chronic condition management using texting to help health plan members get care when they need it.
Promoting Evidence Based Nursing Practice
Project Goal: To improve patient outcomes by initiating and adopting evidence based nursing practice.
Building Data Infrastructure to Address Social Determinants of Health in San Francisco Health Network
Project Goal: To develop Social Determinants of Health data governance infrastructure and an unifying informatics strategy in San Francisco Health Network and Department of Public Health to promote greater organizational alignment in addressing social determinants of health for our patients and...
Transitioning the Emergency Medical Services Agency to the Department of Public Health: New Beginnings
Project Goal: To ensure that emergency medical services staff transition and acculturate successfully so that the current work of the agency is maintained.
Scaling Existing and Designing New Population Health Management Strategies for Success in a New Alternative Payment Model
Project Goal: UCSF health will decrease the total cost of care for attributed medicare beneficiaries by scaling outpatient care management services and care at home programs, adding new skilled nursing facility transitions and End Stage Renal Disease programs, and leverage new Center for...
Reducing Emergency Department Overuse and Improving Access to Primary Care Through Use of Emergency Department Navigator
Project Goal: Reduce emergency department (ED) crowding and avoidable ED visits for patients without a primary care partnership and improve emergency throughput times.
Removing Transportation Barriers to Health Care
Project Goals: To reduce transportation barriers for patients at Marin Community Clinics to decrease the number of missed appointments, and demonstrate return on investment of the program to ensure sustained funding.
My Health Tag – Addressing A1c and Blood Pressure Goal Awareness
Project Goal: To improve metabolic outcomes in our patient population through increased hemoglobin A1c and blood pressure goal awareness by using a simple take-home tool.
Physician – Allied Health Professional Panel Co-Management
Project Goal: To utilize an allied health professional in adult primary care practice to reduce panel size of primary care patients, help to reduce after-hour shifts and indirect work load of primary care physicians.
Ensuring Faster Access to Effective Multiple Sclerosis Medications
Project Goal: To ensure that Multiple Sclerosis patients receive the most effective medication with in a month of diagnosis to reduce relapses and disease progression leading to inpatient utilization.
Keeping Patients Out of the Emergency Department After Acute Hospitalization
Project Goal: Implement discharge bundle to improve patient experience with discharge process and reduce post discharge emergency department return.
A Model for Integrating Behavioral Health Services into LA County’s Public Safety Net Primary Care Clinics
Project Goal: To increase Los Angeles County primary care patients’ access to broad range behavioral health (BH) services by integrating BH providers into primary care medical homes.
Planned Parenthood as Primary Care Provider: Tracking Women's Health Needs
Project Goal: To develop an improved tracking system for delivery of high quality health care for women in their reproductive years, and have begun to use data to demonstrate and improve performance.
The Galileo Project: The Global Risk Playbook for Transformative Population Health
Project Goal: To build, validate, and implement a replicable high-risk/utilizer care management program focused on upstream health risk reduction – for payors and providers approaching global financial risk.