Accreditation preparation and quality improvement

This grant is consistent with Foundation efforts to improve public health practice through accreditation and quality improvement. The standards and metrics for national accreditation are currently in development by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB), and will not be finalized until the program launch in 2011. In the interim, many local health departments are anxious to begin preparing for accreditation, but are unsure what set of performance standards to use and also lack the technical assistance and resources to get started. This grant will support the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) to provide technical assistance to local and tribal health departments to conduct self-assessment using the NACCHO operational definition standards and metrics which are the accepted prototype for developing the national local performance metrics. The pilot health departments will in turn provide systematic feedback on the importance, clarity, and ease of use of the individual metrics to the PHAB workgroup charged with developing the national standards. NACCHO will also provide technical assistance to the participating health departments to improve identified areas of weakness using quality improvement processes or by building regional partnerships among health departments. The project will also provide information on the needs of local health departments for technical assistance related to accreditation and quality improvement.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $1,500,000.00

Awarded on: 1/17/2008

Time frame: 2/15/2008 - 5/31/2009

Grant Number: 63686