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New Year's Resolutions Recap

 

At the beginning of 2012, NACCHO's Accreditation Preparation and QI (APQI) Team made five resolutions. Here's a report on how we did!

1. Interact MORE with YOU  

Almost every accreditNATION newsletter contained an interactive poll for readers. We used the polls to determine our webinar content, new resources, and other technical assistance.  

 

2. Provide valuable resources around LHD Strategic Planning 

NACCHO released a comprehensive guide to strategic planning: Conducting a LHD Strategic Planning Process. Additionally, we conducted a webinar and in-person training around the issue. 

 

3. Provide more TRAINING opportunities

This year NACCHO staff traveled all over the country to train regional groups of health departments. Additionally, members of our Speakers Bureau of Accreditation Champions presented at more than ten meetings on accreditation and quality improvement. 

 

4. Embrace media and technology 
In addition to our regular webinars, NACCHO's APQI team was more active on Twitter and Facebook this year - thanks to those of you who interacted with us! This summer, NACCHO launched a series of electronic training modules for governing entities - check them out here 
 

 

5. Stock up on example documentation!

We have been busily collecting examples of documentation submitted by health departments applying for PHAB accreditation to display in our documentation library. Look for new examples to be posted this winter-and don't forget to submit your own! 

 

WHAT ARE YOUR AGENCY'S RESOLUTIONS AROUND ACCREDITATION AND QI?  

 

Please share them with us by clicking here. We'll share a list in next month's accreditNATION!

Here are some more items that might interest you this month:

 

New Public Health Quality Improvement Database AvailableRTI International, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, recently launched an online resource for public health professionals to share results and lessons learned from quality improvement initiatives, www.phqix.org. The Public Health Quality Improvement Exchange is a free, publicly available communication platform that houses descriptions of the expanding number of public health quality improvement efforts in a standardized format so practitioners and others can find real-world examples relevant to their current and planned quality improvement work.


To encourage interaction and collaboration between public health professionals, the website includes a community forum for dialogue among the site's users, the ability to comment on and pose questions about quality improvement initiatives, and an "Ask an Expert" feature where quality improvement experts weigh in on questions posed by site users. For more information, contact [email protected].  

 

Call for New PHAB Site Visitors: The Public Health Accreditation Board announces a call for volunteer Site Visitors for the 2013-2014 review cycles. To be considered, an individual must have at least five years of professional experience in a Tribal, state, local, or territorial health department; have other management or leadership experience; and have a baccalaureate or higher degree. If you are eligible, please consider being a part of the exciting public health accreditation effort by volunteering to work with PHAB as a Site Visitor. All travel expenses for training and for the site visit are paid by PHAB. The application and its instructions can be accessed online by clicking here. Applications should be submitted to [email protected].

 

Novel Data Set Available for Public UseThe Commonwealth Fund has generated a novel set of rankings which may interest local health departments: The Local Score Card of the Health System Data Center. These rankings are based on hospital referral regions and can be useful to you as you work with hospitals in assessment and planning work. More information and access to the Commonwealth Fund's data can be found here