The PQI division provides leadership and facilitates partnerships with key stakeholders in order to improve care and services with a special focus on populations with low incomes, diverse ethnicity and racial backgrounds, and underserved populations with limited access to care. Division staff support partners who provide clinical and community based services and provide technical assistance in infrastructure building through policy development and implementation, providing data and surveillance activities, and developing appropriate disease management strategies.

I ne PQI division is also involved in the departmental preparations to apply for national accreditation by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB). Key division staff are working on domain teams for public health accreditation activities. Division staff also serve on the department accreditation readiness team, strategic plan committee, State Health Improvement Plan committee, and State Health Assessment committee, and provide data through the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) to all local health departments in Kentucky for their own accreditation efforts.

The Chronic Disease Prevention Branch utilizes evidence-based programming and interventions to reduce morbidity and mortality from chronic diseases. Programs include asthma, community health action teams, community health worker, comprehensive cancer, pediatric cancer, colon cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, obesity prevention, and tobacco prevention. The Branch provides partial funding to local health departments for capacity building, which will lead to sustainable interventions in order to improve health status at the community level through local coalitions, health systems improvement strategies, and by increasing community-clinical linkages for access to screening and disease self-management.

The Health Care Access Branch provides a departmental focus on primary care and administers federal grants and programs relative to primary care. Through these programs, approximately 120 additional physicians are serving Kentucky's medically underserved population. The Branch is responsible for determining areas of Kentucky that meet the criteria for Health Professional Shortage Area and Medically Underserved Area. The Branch is also responsible for the Charitable Health Program, National Health Service Corps Program, Kentucky Physician Care Program, J-1 VISA Program, Kentucky Prescription Assistance Program (KPAP) and Kentucky Spinal Cord and Head Injury Research Board.

The Division of Prevention and Quality Improvement, including both branches, is working toward alignment with Kentucky's public health transformation principles. In order to ensure continuity of services for Kentuckyians, in those geographic areas in which these programs are not identified as local community priorities and will no longer be provided by the LHD, the division is seeking non-traditional partners. Many programs have been in alignment with transformation principles for years and are serving as guidance for others.

The base budget in each fiscal year includes General Fund resources in the amount of $500,000 for the Kentucky Colon Cancer Screening Program, and an additional $250,000 in each fiscal year, for a total of $750,000 each year.

The base budget includes Tobacco Settlement Funds in the amount of $2,111,000 in fiscal year 2027 and $2,000,000 in fiscal year 2028 for Smoking Cessation; $700,000 fiscal year 2027 for Early Childhood Oral Health, and $500,000 in each fiscal year for the Lung Cancer Screening Program. A restricted fund appropriation of $700,000 is added in fiscal year 2028 for Early Childhood Oral Health.

The budget includes an additional $12,500,000 of General Fund in each fiscal year for a nursing student loan forgiveness program.

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