Quality improvement library

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration · For: Community mental health centers

The federal certification criteria, quality measures, and program guidance for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics, straight from the agency that sets them.

What it doesn't cover: How to get thirty independent-minded clinicians to change something inside the therapy hour.

Health Resources and Services Administration · For: Health centers

The federal source for Uniform Data System definitions, national and state comparisons, adjusted quartile rankings, and the Community Health Quality Recognition badges. Everything your UDS report is measured against lives here.

What it doesn't cover: The four-role handoff problem behind most stalled UDS measures.

National Rural Health Resource Center · For: Critical access hospitals

The Technical Assistance and Services Center's hub for the Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement Project: reporting guides, measure fact sheets, the CAH quality improvement guide and toolkit, and the MBQIP Monthly newsletter.

What it doesn't cover: Why a measure that improved during a project slides back afterward.

New England Rural Health Association · For: Everyone

The only regional rural health association in the country, with a 400-person annual conference each November that brings critical access hospitals, health centers, and behavioral health together in one room.

What it doesn't cover: Nothing to cover; it is a network, and a good one.

National Association for State Community Services Programs · For: SDOH nonprofits

The results-based planning and accountability framework community action agencies use under CSBG, with background documents and an introduction for boards. Its cycle of assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation maps closely to PDSA.

What it doesn't cover: How to get frontline staff to adopt a new intake or outcomes practice once the plan is approved.

Rural Health Information Hub · For: Everyone

A federally funded guide to quality programs, measures, and funding for rural providers, with a resource library and a state-by-state view. The best single starting point for a rural quality lead who is new to the role.

What it doesn't cover: How to get a change adopted; it is a reference, not a method.

Health Resources and Services Administration · For: Critical access hospitals

The federal program that funds every state's support for critical access hospitals, including quality improvement, quality reporting, and benchmarking. Your state Flex coordinator is the person to call first about any quality project.

What it doesn't cover: The people side. Flex coaches the measures and the method; adoption is left to the hospital.

Institute for Healthcare Improvement · For: Everyone

The three questions and the PDSA cycle that most healthcare improvement work runs on, explained plainly by the organization that popularized them. Start here if your team has never had a shared method.

What it doesn't cover: Who sponsors the change, what staff need to hear, or what keeps the new way in place after the test.

Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute · For: Health centers

The team that grew out of the MacColl Center, home of the Chronic Care Model. It helps health systems turn research into everyday practice, with tools and practice coaching guides shaped by years of work with safety net clinics.

What it doesn't cover: Hands-on help for one small team's live project; the work centers on health systems and research partnerships.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality · For: Health centers

Federal, public-domain tools on practice facilitation and practice transformation, including a facilitation curriculum whose modules on root cause analysis, workflow redesign, and measurement work as a QI 101 for any clinic team.

What it doesn't cover: Sustainment after the facilitator leaves; the materials assume an outside facilitator drives the work.

Acadia University · For: Everyone

A free, two-hour, self-paced course from a university psychology department on how language AI works, where it is strong, where it fails, and the dependence, energy, and privacy questions worth asking before you rely on it. Completion certificate; no product being sold.

What it doesn't cover: It covers AI literacy, not how to bring AI into a workflow or a team. That's what the GenAI+ Belts do.

American Society for Quality · For: Everyone

The American Society for Quality's library of tool explanations, from fishbone diagrams and Pareto charts to control charts, written for practitioners in any industry. Useful when a belt program's jargon needs a plain definition.

What it doesn't cover: Healthcare context, and anything about adoption.

Bi-State Primary Care Association · For: Health centers

The primary care association for both states, holding the HRSA cooperative agreement to provide training and technical assistance to safety-net providers, with a clinical quality symposium and an annual conference each June.

What it doesn't cover: Change management as a discipline.

National Council for Mental Wellbeing · For: Community mental health centers

The National Council's implementation hub: free training and technical assistance for SAMHSA expansion grantees, office hours, readiness assessments, and consulting for a fee.

What it doesn't cover: Sustainment after the consultant leaves, and the people side of measurement-based care.

Community Action Partnership · For: SDOH nonprofits

The national association for community action agencies, with training, peer learning, and technical assistance on leadership, organizational standards, and results-oriented management.

What it doesn't cover: Change management as a discipline.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development · For: SDOH nonprofits

HUD's home for the Continuum of Care program: system performance measures, program requirements, and the guidance your regional CoC reports against.

What it doesn't cover: The change management behind a new coordinated entry process or a merged program.

TU Delft (DelftX) on edX · For: Everyone

A self-paced introduction to patient journey mapping from TU Delft's design school. You map the actors, phases, emotions, and friction points in a care pathway, then generate and test ideas. Six modules over about eight weeks. Free to audit; a paid verified certificate is optional.

What it doesn't cover: Built for product and service designers. It doesn't cover how to run the map inside a DMAIC or PDSA project, or the change management work that follows.

Simplilearn SkillUp · For: Everyone

Lean principles, the types of waste, and the core tools, in about five hours of self-paced video with a completion certificate. A good first look for teams who use PDSA but haven't seen Lean.

Simplilearn SkillUp · For: Everyone

DMAIC and the Green Belt toolkit at an introductory level, about seven hours of self-paced video with a completion certificate. Pairs directly with the DMAIC map on this site.

Health Resources and Services Administration · For: Health centers

The official guide to the requirements health centers must meet, chapter by chapter, including the quality improvement and quality assurance program.

What it doesn't cover: Building an improvement culture beyond the minimum requirements.

Institute for Healthcare Improvement · For: Everyone

More than thirty short online courses in improvement, safety, and leadership, with a basic certificate available and three free sample courses to try first. Individual subscriptions run about $349 a year; students and residents get access free.

What it doesn't cover: Applying the courses to your organization's live project, or the people side beyond one leadership course.

Institute for Healthcare Improvement · For: Everyone

Templates and short instructions for the core improvement tools, including cause and effect diagrams, driver diagrams, flowcharts, Pareto charts, PDSA worksheets, and run and control charts.

What it doesn't cover: Who needs to be on board, or what keeps a change in place after the test.

Maine Department of Health and Human Services · For: Critical access hospitals

Maine's State Office of Rural Health, Flex Program, and SHIP grants, including the quality network where Maine's critical access hospitals review MBQIP data together.

What it doesn't cover: The people side; the network coaches the measures.

Maine Primary Care Association · For: Health centers

Training, technical assistance, and an annual conference each October for Maine's health center network, the largest independent primary care network in the state.

What it doesn't cover: Change management as a discipline.

National Association of Community Health Centers · For: Health centers

The national association for health centers, with training, policy updates, and quality resources aimed at the Health Center Program's requirements.

What it doesn't cover: State and regional specifics; that is your primary care association’s job.

NH Department of Health and Human Services · For: Critical access hospitals, Health centers

The state office that runs New Hampshire's Flex Program, the Small Rural Hospital Improvement Program, and the State Office of Rural Health, and serves as the liaison between rural providers and DHHS programs.

What it doesn't cover: Behavioral health and housing providers, who have their own state channels.

NH Community Behavioral Health Association · For: Community mental health centers

The association representing New Hampshire's community mental health centers and leading the state's Rural Health Transformation work on CCBHC adoption, and co-host of the annual NH Behavioral Health Summit each December.

What it doesn't cover: The people side of the CCBHC transition inside each center.

Rural Health Information Hub · For: Critical access hospitals

Step-by-step, evidence-based toolkits for building rural health programs, each with guidance on planning, funding, evaluation, and sustainability.

What it doesn't cover: Changing how an existing team works; the toolkits focus on starting new programs.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration · For: Community mental health centers

A searchable collection of guides, toolkits, and implementation resources for evidence-based mental health and substance use practices.

What it doesn't cover: How to get clinicians to adopt a practice once it has been chosen.

Kennesaw State University on Coursera · For: Everyone

The next step after the Yellow Belt: four courses on the DMAIC phases at Green Belt depth, with a capstone. Paid, with financial aid available. Aligned to the ASQ Green Belt handbook.

Kennesaw State University on Coursera · For: Everyone

Four university-taught courses covering Six Sigma and Lean at the Yellow Belt level, about four weeks at ten hours a week, ending in a capstone project. Paid, with financial aid available. Take this before the Green Belt specialization.

National Rural Health Resource Center · For: Critical access hospitals

One page per state with the Flex and SHIP program contacts. If you don't know your coordinator's name, this is where you find it.

What it doesn't cover: Nothing to cover; it is a directory.

Stratis Health · For: Critical access hospitals

The HRSA-funded technical assistance program behind much of the MBQIP support, including a national cohort of critical access hospital QI mentors who have done the work themselves.

What it doesn't cover: Change management as a discipline; the focus is data, measures, and improvement strategies.

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality · For: Everyone

AHRQ's evidence-based teamwork system for health care: free curricula, pocket tools, and training materials on communication, leadership, situation monitoring, and mutual support.

What it doesn't cover: Managing a specific change through adoption; it builds teamwork skills rather than a plan for one change.