Cincinnati Children’s expanded its food offerings to primary care patients with the help of a quality improvement education program.
Pediatricians at the system’s clinics partnered with Free Store Food Bank, the largest food bank in Ohio, to provide deliveries of fresh produce to its patients through its pediatric primary care facilities. Families are screened for food insecurity and transportation barriers, among other social determinants of health. If they meet criteria for food and transportation barriers, they can use the in-clinic food pantry of shelf-stable items and sign up for produce delivery. Cincinnati Children’s then refers the family to the food bank and they are automatically enrolled.
Families in the program receive their first box of produce within two to three weeks of their appointment. They then receive a roughly 20-pound box of fresh produce every two weeks. The program is ongoing so patients can remain in the program for as long as they need, Michelle Gorecki, MD, general pediatrician and research faculty at Cincinnati Children’s, told Becker’s. Since August 2023, the program has helped over 600 families. The program has been so successful that leaders are looking to expand it to additional pediatric clinics.
This is one of many programs Cincinnati Children’s has launched through its Rapid Cycle Improvement Collaborative. The program is a team-based course that partners with internal and external teams to launch programs using quality-improvement methods, John Holcomb, director of the program, told Becker’s. Multidisciplinary teams learn quality-improvement methodology and tools, and apply them to projects in real time. The educational courses empower front-line individuals and teams to become change agents and improve processes, DaVona Chapman, PhD, director of the leadership academy, told Becker’s.
Dr. Gorecki said the RCIC program helped her team implement a referral pathway and design intentional metrics. Together, this made the new food delivery program seamless for patients.
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