Public Health Intersection

On September 14, the Public Health Accreditation Board, (PHAB), began its effort to promote public health accreditation throughout the US.

While many states have implemented state and/or local public health accreditation activities over the last decade and a half, the PHAB effort is the first national foray into public health accreditation.

Over the last two decades the public health field has participated in several other community and self assessment and tracking activities, including performance standards, model standards, community assessment, as well as, several program specific review tools.

Having spent a portion of my career advocating for and implementing accreditation programs, the PHAB announcement should feel like the culmination of a long hard journey.

Although I am certainly not a skeptic of the value of accreditation for public health entities, I remain a little concerned about whether this current effort will "take".

In my public health accreditation experiencing Michigan, there were two things that made that effort successful. First, it was mandatory; second there was a financial incentive to participate.

The current national effort has neither of those key drivers to assure the adoption and acceptance of accreditation.

That leaves us with, "gentle persuasion".

The challenge becomes convincing staff and resource strapped public health entities that it is worth their while to commit the time, energy and resources that it takes to be successful in participating in an accreditation effort.

Past efforts have been state focused and while that provincial model may have worked as individual states entered accreditation implementation efforts, it is not clear that that model will work as well in the context of a national effort.

One thing that merits exploration is a more holistic and perhaps regional approach.

This plays into that, "gentle persuasion", approach that I mentioned earlier.

As it is one thing to be gently persuaded by a national effort, it is yet another to be gently persuaded by all of your neighbors.

I look forward to working with PHAB and our Western neighbors in an effort to be successful in promoting the adoption of a standard public health accreditation for all state and local public health agencies.