Program Overview

The Certificate in Health Care Improvement is designed to train inter-professional clinical teams in practical skills for health care improvement, grounded in the science of health care delivery.  These teams will leverage partnerships outside traditional boundaries, foster inter-professional teamwork, and lead the change to improve health care delivery and population health in their community.

The Certificate Program consists of a self-study period, two in-person meetings, five content modules, and a concurrent improvement project.  The Program is supported by the Department of Medical Education and Center for Performance Improvement at Maine Medical Center/ MaineHealth. Program Leadership is provided by Drs. Kathleen Fairfield and Peter Bates.  The Program is conducted in close collaboration with the Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) – Maine Track Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC). Isaac Stickney, M.E.d., C.G.S. serves as Curriculum Designer

Hybrid Learning Model

The learning model was developed by The Dartmouth Institute for their MPH program and is a highly effective method of blended learning that combines high-quality online materials consisting of brief videos and key readings (approximately 1-2 hours of content weekly) with once-weekly synchronous, one-hour sessions where participants and faculty interact vis the ZOOM platform. Additionally, the participants and program leaders meet in person at the beginning, and at the conclusion of the program. A weekly Discussion Board provides additional faculty-participant interaction around targeted faculty queries (“homework”) drawing from the online content.

Modules & Faculty:

Click below for Overarching Topics for each module:

Practice Improvement or Community-based Population Health Improvement Project

Throughout the course, the participants engage in an improvement project, selected based on their own assessment of greatest need and interest locally.  The teams receive support from improvement coaches through the MaineHealth Center for Performance Improvement (CPI).