PHAB IN ACTION  

PHAB Presents at National Association of Local Boards of Health Meeting

The National Association of Local Boards of Health (NALBOH) held its 20th Anniversary Meeting in Atlanta, in August. Citing e-PHAB information from the first group of applicants, PHAB Board member Hugh Tilson, MD, DrPH, MPH, joined Kaye Bender for a presentation on "Achievements in Governance Engagement in Public Health Accreditation." The event concluded with an awards dinner at Atlanta's historic Fox Theatre. During the gala event, Bender and Tilson presented a PHAB Board of Directors' resolution honoring long-time NALBOH Executive Director Marie Fallon, who died of cancer in May. A key participant in PHAB's founding and early development, Fallon served as the founding chair of PHAB's Board of Directors in 2008 and also provided leadership in the development of PHAB's initial governance Standards and Measures. 

 

NALBOH President Steve Scanlin (center), accepts a resolution honoring the work of Dr. Marie Fallon from PHAB Board member Hugh Tilson and PHAB President/CEO Kaye Bender.  [Photo courtesy of NALBOH]

 

PHAB will be developing a new one-pager, featuring some of the information presented at the event, for use by health departments in discussions with boards of health and appointed officials.

   

PHAB, ASTHO Leaders Join for Discussion in Austin, Texas

Kaye Bender met with two groups during the annual meeting of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. The meeting, held in Austin, Texas, Sept. 11-14, included robust discussions with the ASTHO Performance Policy Committee and the ASTHO Affiliate Council. The discussions will assist PHAB in its continued work to manage and improve the national public health department accreditation process. PHAB appreciates its partnership with ASTHO in preparing state health departments for accreditation. As of mid-September, 12 state health departments were actively engaged in the e-PHAB system.

 

This year's ASTHO Alumni Award winner is Leah Devlin, DDS, MPH, state health director for North Carolina from 2001 to 2009, in recognition of her continued commitment to public health.  Devlin is a member of the PHAB Board of Directors. Georges Benjamin, MD, FACP, FACEP, executive director of the American Public Health Association and an organizational member of the PHAB Board of Directors, received ASTHO's National Excellence in Public Health Award. 

 

Washington health officer Mary Selecky and Texas health officer and ASTHO President David Lakey present ASTHO's National Excellence in Public Health Award to APHA's Georges Benjamin (center) during the opening of the ASTHO Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas. [Photo courtesy of ASTHO]

 

 

Accreditation Highlighted at Public Health Training Centers' Annual Meeting

In August, Kaye Bender served as a featured speaker at the annual meeting of the Public Health Training Centers. More than 125 people attended the Aug. 29-30 event in Rockville, Md, which provided an opportunity to keep PHTC's 38 grantees abreast of key Health Resources and Service Administration and Bureau of Health Professions strategies and priorities.  

 

During a presentation titled "Working Together to Support Accreditation of Health Departments," Bender shared highlights of national public health accreditation, from its genesis in a 2003 Institute of Medicine Report that called for a national dialogue about accreditation, to today.

 

"We want health departments to be accredited, but not for accreditation's sake," Bender told the group. "We are voluntary, so we want health departments to do this because they want to, because they see the opportunity to have peers review their work and give them some suggestions for doing it better. We could all do things better. So our platform, if you will, is that accreditation is one important step on the journey of changing the health department or strengthening the health department's culture of quality improvement."

 

Funded by HRSA, the PHTC Network improves the nation's public health system by strengthening the technical, scientific, managerial, and leadership competence of current and future public health professionals. The PHTC Network offers a range of accreditation-related resources and tools. For more information, visit the PHTC Network's website.

  

  

PHAB Welcomes New Staff

Support for accreditation continues to grow, and so does PHAB's staff. On Aug. 16, PHAB welcomed Jennifer Jimenez, MPH, to its growing team of Accreditation Specialists. Jennifer's experience with PHAB accreditation dates back to 2005, when she worked for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials on the "Exploring Accreditation" project. Also at ASTHO, Jennifer managed the National Public Health Performance Standards Program, led expert workgroups in the development of performance improvement resources, contributed to the design of a quality improvement demonstration project, and coordinated accreditation preparation guidance and technical assistance for state health departments.  In 2010, Jennifer returned to her home state of California and soon began contracting with PHAB on special projects, including the California Think Tank. Jennifer holds a master's degree in public health from George Washington University.

 

 

On Aug. 27, PHAB welcomed Teddi Dineley Nicolaus (formerly Johnson) as its new Communications Manager. Prior to joining PHAB, Teddi worked as a reporter for the American Public Health Association's award-winning newspaper, The Nation's Health. Joining The Nation's Health team in 2005, Teddi covered a range of public health issues and topics, including news of APHA's many Sections and Affiliates. She also served as the lead author of "Healthy You," which debuted in 2006. Prior to joining APHA, Teddi spent eight years as an editor and writer for the Newspaper Association of America, where she covered newspaper industry news and served as a writer for the organization's flagship magazine, Presstime. Teddi hails from Washington, D.C., and holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park.

 

 

  

PHAB to Host Learning Institute at APHA's Annual Meeting in San Francisco

PHAB will host an important Learning Institute at the American Public Health Association's upcoming Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Titled "Evaluating and Selecting Documentation for Accreditation Measures," the Learning Institute will be held from 8 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 28, just prior to the opening general session of APHA's 140th Annual Meeting & Expo.

 

"As health departments prepare for accreditation, this Learning Institute will provide the important knowledge base necessary for evaluating, creating, selecting, and revising documentation that can be used to meet the requirements of accreditation standards," said PHAB President and CEO Kaye Bender. "The institute will also provide participants with a solid understanding of the intent and interpretation of the standards and measures, which will give them sound footing for selecting appropriate documentation." The Learning Institute provides three continuing education credits.

 

 

Accreditation to be Highlighted in Scores of APHA Annual Meeting Sessions

Accreditation will be a topic in nearly 100 scientific sessions at APHA's 140th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, Oct. 28-31. For information about the annual meeting, visit APHA's Annual Meeting website, and accreditation-specific sessions can be searched online.

PROGRAM NOTES: Accreditation Program Updates

PARTNER SPOTLIGHT: Center for Sharing Public Health Services

The Center for Sharing Public Health Services is a national initiative of the Kansas Health Institute with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Center is designed to help teams of public health officials and policymakers test and refine ways that public health agencies can share resources and work together to improve performance. At the heart of the Center's initiatives is cross-jurisdictional sharing, or CJS, which is a process that reaches across administrative boundaries to combine resources, tasks, and results.

The Center recently announced that it will award grants to 18 teams of public health officials, policymakers, and other stakeholders. The grants will enable the teams to explore, implement and improve CJS arrangements.

"By encouraging CJS, the Center will help local health departments increase efficiencies and capacities," said Patrick Libbey, the Center's co-director. "By joining forces, health departments will more readily be able to meet accreditation standards."

Center staff will closely monitor work being done by the teams and provide technical assistance.

"We want to make sure that our work is helping organizations beyond our 18 grantees" said Center Co-Director Gianfranco Pezzino, MD. "Much of the Center's technical assistance will be made available to other public health departments who are exploring CJS and/or applying for accreditation."

The Center serves as a communications hub to facilitate the exchange of information among a wide range of stakeholders -- from public health officials and practitioners at Tribal, state, and local public health departments to elected officials.  The grant funding begins in January 2013. 

For more information about the Center for Sharing Public Health Services' accreditation resources, visit the Center for Sharing Public Health Services' website.

PARTNER NEWS AND ACCREDITATION INITIATIVES

ACCREDITATION RESOURCES

Public Health Accreditation and the Malcolm Baldrige Awards

The Quest for Exceptional Performance illustrates the complementary aspects of PHAB's accreditation program and the Malcolm Baldrige Award for Excellence. Developed by PHAB partners, the tool includes a description of both programs, in addition to crosswalks that compare the two. Use of the Baldrige criteria as an organizational self-assessment tool can facilitate a health department's pursuit of PHAB Accreditation by serving as the foundation of the required performance management system and by informing aspects of strategic planning, customer satisfaction, quality improvement, and workforce development. While not interchangeable, the PHAB and Baldrige programs are synergistic and both support an ongoing quest for exceptional performance. The tool is available for download online.

National Academy for State Health Policy Offers Workshop on Improving Population Health

The National Academy for State Health Policy will offer a workshop on "Improving Population Health Outcomes: Creating a Truly Comprehensive Health System," on Monday, Oct. 15 in Baltimore. The day-long meeting is supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as a pre-conference for NASHP's 25th Annual State Health Policy Conference, which is set for Oct. 15-17. Register now to reserve a seat.  The Affordable Care Act provides momentum for integrating community prevention, primary care, and hospital-based services through new care models, data integration, and innovative payment approaches. This pre-conference is designed to help state policymakers across agencies, programs, and branches of government take advantage of significant transitions in health delivery systems by strengthening partnerships and leveraging opportunities to improve population health and reduce more costly interventions.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Christopher Atchison, Associate Dean for Public Health, University of Iowa
• John Auerbach, Commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Public Health
• Anne Barry, Deputy Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Human Services
• Paul Halverson, Director, State Health Officer, Arkansas Department of Health
• Paul Kuehnert, Team Director and Senior Program Officer, Public Health Team, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• Mary McIntyre, Assistant State Health Officer, Alabama Department of Health
• Rebecca Pasternik-Ikard, Deputy State Medicaid Director, Oklahoma Health Care Authority
• Joshua Sharfstein, Secretary, Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
• Jeanene Smith, Administrator, Office for Oregon Health Policy & Research
• Paul Wallace, Senior Vice President and Director, Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research, The Lewin Group

WORD ON THE STREET

1. We are developing our work plan to apply for public health accreditation. The PHAB Guide to National Public Health Department Accreditation, Version 1.0, says that health departments will need to wait six months between submitting their Statement of Intent, or SOI, and receiving the link to complete the application. Is PHAB going to start to implement this waiting period?

The six-month waiting period was originally built into the accreditation process to provide PHAB with time to plan its work load and make staff assignments. When accreditation launched in September 2011, the waiting period was waived to accommodate health departments that were ready and waiting to apply. Since that time, PHAB has found that the waiting period is not necessary. It is possible that PHAB may apply the waiting period at some point in the future, but currently there are no plans to do so. Therefore, the six-month waiting period between the SOI and application is waived until further notice. 

2. How much time will PHAB need to process our SOI and our application?

Health departments' SOIs and applications are reviewed by PHAB Accreditation Specialists for completeness and accuracy. Health departments will, in most cases, receive either approval of the SOI or a change request from PHAB in no more than a week from when the SOI is submitted to PHAB. The application is more complicated and involves a review of the three prerequisites to ensure that they meet PHAB's definitions of Community Health Assessment, Community Health Improvement Plan, and Department Strategic Plan. Health departments will, in most cases, receive either approval of the application or a change request from PHAB in no more than two weeks from when the application is submitted to PHAB. Once the application is deemed to be complete, an invoice will be sent to the health department for the accreditation fee due, based on the payment option selected in the application. When the fee is received by PHAB, the application will be deemed to be accepted and training for the health department's Accreditation Coordinator can proceed. 

3. Can our health department have access to e-PHAB to organize and upload our documentation before our application is accepted by PHAB?

A health department's subscription and access to PHAB's online accreditation information system, e-PHAB, is included in the accreditation fee. We cannot make e-PHAB available to health departments that have not submitted their applications and paid their accreditation fees.

4. Site visit teams have the opportunity to note areas of excellence in the site visit report. How does the site visit team decide if a health department has demonstrated an area of excellence?

The site visit team may note both "areas of excellence" and "opportunities for improvement" for each measure. "Areas of excellence" and "opportunities for improvement" are independent of the measure's assessment. That is, a measure may be assessed as "not demonstrated," but the site visitors may identify a particular practice that is deemed to be "excellent." Likewise, a site visit team may assess a particular measure as "fully demonstrated" and also note what they see as an opportunity for improvement. These "areas of excellence" and "opportunities for improvement" will be identified by the site visit team through a consensus review process that will draw on each team member's significant public health experience and expertise. The site visit team's observations will be made within the context of the specific health department being reviewed and may or may not be applicable or transferable to other health departments' operations. 

You may contact: 

Mark Paepcke, Chief Administrative Officer, to talk about fees and contractual information. He may be reached at mpaepcke@phaboard.org or 703-778-4549 ext. 104.

Robin Wilcox, Chief Program Officer, to talk about interpretation and meaning of the PHAB Standards and Measures as well as the accreditation process. She may be reached at rwilcox@phaboard.org or 703-778-4549 ext. 106.

Rachel Margolis, Jennifer Jimenez, or Marita Chilton, Accreditation Specialists, to talk about the accreditation process for health departments. Rachel may be reached at rmargolis@phaboard.org or 703-778-4549 ext. 108, Jennifer at jjimenez@phaboard.org or 240-401-3221; and Marita may be reached at mchilton@phaboard.org or 703-778-4549 ext. 114.

David Stone, Accreditation Education Specialist, to talk about PHAB's education services, including orientations and trainings. He may be reached at dstone@phaboard.org or 703-778-4549 ext. 105.

Travis Parker Lee, Program Specialist, to talk about meetings, events, and requests for speakers.  He may be reached at tlee@phaboard.org or 703-778-4549 ext. 102.

Jessica Kronstadt, Director of Research and Evaluation, to talk about public health accreditation-related research and evaluation.  She may be reached at jkronstadt@phaboard.org or 703-778-4549 ext. 117.

Teddi Dineley Nicolaus, Communications Manager, to talk about accreditation-related news, media requests and story ideas. She may be reached at tnicolaus@phaboard.org or 703-778-4549 ext. 118.

Genny Lush, Office Manager, to talk about general office inquiries. She may be reached at glush@phaboard.org or 703-778-4549 ext 100.

If you have a suggestion for future segments of Word on the Street, please send them to Teddi Nicolaus.