Process Improvement Strategies Guide Cook Children’s in U.S. News Rankings
By Jean Yeager
Looking ahead to Oct. 8, when U.S. News & World Report ranks the nation’s best children’s hospitals, we want to highlight the collaborative approach at Cook Children’s.
Quality Performance Improvement (QPI) specialists Kim Kimberling and Noelia Echols assist our departments in collecting, verifying and reporting the information needed for the U.S. News surveys. Having Noelia and Kim on board makes the process more cohesive, efficient, accurate and data-driven.
We earned five badges when the 2023-2024 U.S. News Best Children’s Hospitals list was released last year:
· Pediatric Cancer -- #30 in the nation
· Pediatric Diabetes and Endocrinology -- #31 in the nation
· Pediatric Neurology and Neurosurgery -- #36 in the nation
· Pediatric Orthopedics -- #40 in the nation
· Pediatric Pulmonology and Lung Surgery-- #48 in the nation
The QPI experts at Cook Children’s oversee various steps that feed into the annual applications. 
Tiffany Epperson, Director of Hematology/Oncology, said the survey can be daunting, but partnering with QPI made the task smother and more enjoyable. Prior to completing this year’s survey, the Hematology/Oncology staff members shared ideas with Kim and Noelia to make their survey answers even better.
“One of our most rewarding experiences was meeting with Kim to discuss our scores from the previous year,” Tiffany said. “She provided our team with areas we did well in (so we could keep up the strong work) and areas we could have scored higher. This level of detail provided us the opportunity to continue the great work and improve in other areas.”
Another example was the way the Behavioral Health staff connected with one another from departments across Cook Children’s. Noelia and Kim brought together therapists, counselors and others for the teamwork required to fill out the survey. They guided and facilitated the process for Behavioral Health, which is new to the rankings in 2024.
Anthony Mason, Director of QPI, said requests to Information Systems (IS) are now more streamlined than in previous years. Kim’s and Noelia’s roles were created to coordinate the effort through singular touch points.
“This all forms and flows through PI processes,” Anthony said. “What Kim and Noelia are doing is a really good example of what you can do with organized and formulated ideas around PI processes. They provide the structure -- the scaffolding -- for that one-stop shop.”
In December 2023, the two coordinators began meeting weekly with IS to start gathering information for the 2024-2025 rankings. Then they distributed the surveys in January 2024 to each of the specialties, where the IS reports were used to answer thousands of questions. Completed applications were submitted in March 2024.
The Research Administration Office collaborates by confirming information about the research undertaken by each of the specialty programs. Their input is a valued contribution to the application process because the rankings take research studies into account.
Watch the next Connect newsletter for a look at data analytics, communications and gearing up for next year’s rankings.
If you have questions or want to learn more, check out our CookNet site or contact the Cook Children's U.S. News & World Report team at USNews@cookchildrens.org.
