Lassen County Quality Improvement and Quality Assurance (hereafter referred to as QI/QA) has been partnering with other departments within Health and Social Services for little over a year. The QI/QA department provides system improvements and oversight to the different departments within Health and Social Services. Currently QI/QA is partnering with Mental Health, In-Home Supportive Services, Family and Children Protective Services, and Public Health. QI/QA is slowly integrating itself into other various programs such as Alcohol and Drug, Lassen Works, One Stop Centers, and other contracted programs.

The vision of Quality Improvement and Quality Assurance is to continuously strive to provide system oversight, evaluation and monitoring to the various Health and Social Services departments and to assure quality services to consumers and to the community. The basic philosophy of QI/QA is to monitor accessible, timely, appropriate and effective services, which are culturally competent, age and gender appropriate, strength-based and recovery oriented.

Lassen County is unique from other Counties because QA/QI is partnering with all of Health and Social Services. Most Counties within California have QA/QI functioning within a Department (i.e. Mental Health) not a stand alone Department within Health and Social Services. The goal is to build upon and expand the function (QI/QA) across each department or “silo” that comprises the Health and Social Service Agency. This allows the learning gained from the expertise in one department to be applied to the needs in another without the recreation of the knowledge and vision.