| Rochelle Moore is a licensed mental health counselor in Washington and Utah. She leads UICSL’s quality assurance and performance improvement team.
Rochelle has over 15 years of experience in the non-profit housing sector, mental health courts, and healthcare systems. She is a member of the Utah Mental Health Counselors Association; and she maintains an active private practice. This experience allows her to approach quality improvement and compliance with a unique perspective. Rochelle received her undergraduate degree from University of Utah and her master’s degree from Antioch University in Seattle. She lives in Utah and enjoys climbing and hiking with her dog, Chip. She is proud to serve the Native American community and has been at the Center since 2020. 1) You joined UICSL during the pandemic year – what was that like for you personally and from your recollection of the Center at the time? I didn’t know what it was like normally at the Center before joining during the pandemic but it all changed normal operations and we had to adjust like everyone else. We were walking a path without any precedence but we persevered and made it through that time, it was a walk that required sticking together even though we didn’t know what was ahead of us. 2) Within committees that you lead, you like to start meetings by reciting the organization’s mission statement. Can you tell us the importance of reinforcing this message within the group? I think its very important to remember the main reason why we’re all here, and that has to do with serving the people, honoring culture and cultivating community. Without the people, there is no purpose. Reinforcing the mission at meetings keeps the work in perspective. 3) How did you find yourself within the compliance environment after being a mental health therapist? Ah, great question! I’ve always only worked in the non-profit sector and was looking for work in Indiana when I saw a job posting for a Behavioral Health Compliance Officer at Volunteers of America. I didn’t know much about compliance or accreditation at the time but I decided to apply. I felt that because of my mental health and non profit background that I would be a good asset to a team of compliance professionals. I landed the job helping the Behavioral Health program become CARF accredited and that was the start of my shift into compliance and QI work. 4) Talk about your current role and how your experience as a behavioral health therapist informs the way you approach quality improvement and compliance? My role requires me to cast a wide and friendly net, to ask questions, be curious and bring people together who might not be paying attention to the gaps or who might feel overwhelmed by the task of solving problems. Quality improvement is about making things better, and so is being a mental health therapist – we start where you are and take small measurable steps to help you get to a better place. So, oddly enough, the two have strong similarities even though different methodologies are used. 5) Your position is vitally important because there are numerous regulations within healthcare, many of which most observers wouldn’t even know about. What are some of the most important issues that top the list? They’re sort of hidden issues, I guess you could say. The important ones have to do with patient safety, privacy, fraud waste and abuse; essentially the areas within the six domains of healthcare. 6) How do you distinguish QA from quality improvement? QA is about assurance, its about demonstrating and maintaining trust in what we’re already doing. Quality improvement is about identifying a need, a gap and getting that gap to close so that a system or process can be better than it was. 7) Compliance findings can sometimes be uncomfortable for staff. Talk a bit approaching a situation that needs to be addressed and navigating the relationships within the organization. I try to assure our teams that findings and gaps are opportunities, for us to do better, for us to learn and for us to work better as a team. Findings are systematic failures, not human ones. People work better when the environment and system is set up for success! In other words, start positively and create a collective vision on how to move forward. 8) Compliance and QA can be an ongoing process – what tools do you use to keep yourself informed about the latest developments? You’re right, it is an ongoing process! So I try my best to stay current by subscribing to a number of newsletters, podcasts. I also attend webinars, conferences and take the things I learn from those events into my every day work. 9) Enough about work. Tell me how you spend your time on weekends when you’re not working as a therapist. I love spending time with my dog Chip, he’s the best dog in the whole world! My husband and I enjoy playing pickleball, hiking, kayaking, taking trips, cooking, climbing, white river rafting, snorkeling and anything else that keeps us active! 10) Travel is one of your passions – what destinations are on the horizon? This year it will be back to Belize to visit my family then later on heading to New Zealand to explore the north island. | 
