Application: Memo on Accreditation

As a public health professional, you may be asked by your department to recommend whether or not to follow a particular course of action. To do this you would need to review the pros and cons of the issue and make a cogent proposal based on your understanding of it.For this Application Assignment, you will practice this process by thinking through whether or not your local health department should participate in accreditation.

Imagine that you work for your local health department. Write a two-page memo to your local health director in which you describe the pros and cons of accreditation to improve public health capacity and services. In this memo you must:

• Summarize the strengths and weaknesses of using performance measurement in general, and local public health agency accreditation in particular, in order to improve public health capacity and services. Include the perspective of the community as well as a local health department.
• After stating your conclusion on the value of performance measurement, indicate if you are in favor of or opposed to accreditation. Make sure you have justified this position in your memo.

Preparation:

To prepare for this Application, browse through the Web sites in the Learning Resources on accreditation, and familiarize yourself withNorth Carolina's public health agency accreditation system, which is one of the leading examples in the nation. You can review the North Carolina accreditation process by goingto the Web sitehttp://nciph.sph.unc.edu/accred/andreading the Overview. Then, click on and read the following items accessed through the menu on the left side of the page:

• Accreditation Process
• Materials for Health Departments, specifically:
• • Health Department Self-Assessment Instrument (HDSAI) (browse through this document, which is more than 150 pages)Health Department Self-Assessment Instrument (HDSAI)
  • "Not Met" Activities... (2008 Not Met Activities) "Not Met Activities with Details"