Resources
Quality improvement resources worth your time
The best of the field, with the New England layer no national list includes.
Most of what a safety-net organization needs to run quality improvement already exists, and much of it is free. This is the short list we point clients to, grouped by who it serves, with a note on what each one covers and what it leaves out. We don't compete with any of these. We sit alongside them.
Last reviewed September 2026. Descriptions are ours; the resources belong to the organizations named.
For everyone
The Model for Improvement (IHI)
For: Any team starting or restarting improvement work
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.
IHI Open School
For: Individuals who want structured QI education with continuing education credits
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.
AHRQ practice improvement resources
For: Primary care and outpatient teams
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.
ASQ Quality Resources
For: Anyone who wants the classic quality tools explained
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.
Rural Health Information Hub: health care quality
For: Rural organizations of any type
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.
For critical access hospitals
The Flex Program (HRSA)
For: Critical access hospital leaders and quality staff
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.
State Flex program profiles and coordinators (TASC)
For: Anyone who needs to find their state Flex coordinator
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.
MBQIP resources (TASC)
For: Critical access hospital quality staff who report MBQIP measures
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.
Stratis Health rural quality improvement technical assistance
For: Critical access hospitals and small rural providers
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.
For health centers
HRSA Health Center Program data and reporting (UDS)
For: FQHC quality and data staff
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 Association of Community Health Centers
For: FQHC leaders, quality staff, and boards
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.
For community mental health centers
CCBHC resources (SAMHSA)
For: Community mental health centers pursuing or operating as CCBHCs
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.
CCBHC Success Center (National Council for Mental Wellbeing)
For: Current and prospective CCBHCs
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.
For nonprofits addressing social determinants of health
ROMA: Results Oriented Management and Accountability (NASCSP)
For: Community action agencies
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.
Continuum of Care program (HUD Exchange)
For: Housing and homelessness providers
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.
The New England layer
New Hampshire Rural Health and Primary Care
For: New Hampshire critical access hospitals, rural providers, and 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.
Maine Office of Rural Health and Primary Care
For: Maine critical access hospitals and rural providers
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.
Bi-State Primary Care Association
For: Health centers in New Hampshire and Vermont
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.
Maine Primary Care Association
For: Maine's community 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.
NH Community Behavioral Health Association
For: New Hampshire's ten 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.
New England Rural Health Association
For: Rural providers of every type across the six states
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.
None of these cover the people side.
They coach the method, the measures, and the reporting, and they do it well. What they leave to you is sponsorship, communication, training, resistance, and reinforcement. That is what the Quality Improvement modules add.