Accreditation and Performance Improvement

NNPHI has long recognized the value of supporting agency and systems improvement and has engaged in many activities towards accreditation and performance improvement in public health.  As CDC Director Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH, has noted, “accreditation is a major accomplishment for a health department.  It means that it is addressing key community health problems.  Just as the public expects hospitals, law enforcement agencies, and schools to be accredited, so should they come to expect public health departments.”

Featured Accreditation and Performance Improvement Resources:

• Public Health Performance Improvement Toolkit: Online collection of tools, trainings, and related resources that have been developed by public health practitioners through their work in public health improvement and in preparation for national voluntary accreditation 

• Stories and Topical Briefs: Summarizes lessons learned by health departments engaged in quality improvement (QI) and accreditation preparation efforts and provides recommendations for practitioners

• QI Storyboards: Features all of the storyboards that have been submitted by the Multi-State Learning Collaborative projects, as well as resources on how to develop your own storyboards

• Archived Meetings and Webinars: Archives materials from previous in-person conferences and recordings and notes from webinars covering a plethora of performance improvement topics  

NNPHI Accreditation and Performance Improvement Programs:

• National Public Health Performance Standards Program (NPHPSP): The NPHPSP improves the quality of public health practice and performance of public health systems by providing systems-focused standards for performance. The standards identify areas for system improvement, strengthen state and local partnerships, and assure that a strong system is in place to respond to day-to-day public health issues and emergencies. NNPHI is one of seven national partners that coordinate to implement this program.

• Strengthening the Community of Practice for Public Health Improvement (COPPHI): COPPHI is a two-year, $1.75 million project led by NNPHI and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that facilitates the exchange of best practices and builds capacity among the nation's public health departments to become accredited and conduct quality improvement (QI). COPPHI promotes shared learning among a broad range of local, state, and tribal health department representatives; public health institutes; universities; national public health organizations; funders; policymakers; government agencies; and boards of health.

• Multi-State Learning Collaborative (MLC): The MLC brought state and local health departments together with other stakeholders—including public health institutes, health care providers, and universities—to improve public health services and the health of their community by implementing quality improvement (QI) practices. The MLC was managed by NNPHI and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). During the project's six years, QI teams in each of the 16 participant states prepared for public health accreditation and applied QI practices to achieve specific and measurable goals.

Institutes in Action: How Public Health Institutes are Contributing to Public Health Accreditation and Performance Improvement:

• Public health institutes support ongoing public health QI practices and play a critical role in mobilizing and preparing health departments for national accreditation. NNPHI is pleased to showcase examples of its member institutes' significant contributions to public health performance improvement.

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