Maintaining Accreditation through PHAB Ensures the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Capacity to Continue to Evolve, Improve and Advance
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment today announced it has successfully completed a review process to maintain national accreditation status through the Public Health Accreditation Board. PHAB, the only national accrediting body for public health in the United States, works to improve public health practice by prioritizing performance improvement, infrastructure, and innovation. In maintaining its accreditation status for another five years, CDPHE has demonstrated that it meets PHAB’s quality standards and performance metrics. The reaccreditation process also evaluated CDPHE’s capacity to evolve, improve and advance, which is vital to the depart- ment’s ability to enhance its effectiveness at improving the health of Coloradans and their communities.
PHAB’s accreditation program, which receives support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, sets standards against which the nation’s governmental public health departments can continuously improve the quality of their services and performance.
“We are proud of once again achieving accreditation status through the Public Health Accreditation Board,” said CDPHE Executive Director Jill Hunsaker Ryan. “But what matters to Coloradans is what this means to them — that their health department is committed to doing everything it can to protect the health and wellbeing of the people it serves. ”
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment achieved national initial accreditation status through PHAB on March 8, 2016, after undergoing a rig- orous, multi-faceted, peer-reviewed assessment process to ensure it met a set of quality standards and measures. Today’s announcement goes a step further by demonstrating that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has the capacity to become increasingly effec- tive at improving the health of Colorado residents and the communities they serve.
PHAB also announced reaccreditation of the Weld County Health Department.
“We are extremely pleased to be at the point in the accreditation program where the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, along with many others, are successfully maintaining their five-year accreditation status through PHAB,” said PHAB President and CEO Paul Kuehnert, DNP, RN, FAAN. “In so doing, these health departments are assuring their communities that the value of accreditation is long-term — not a one-time recognition — and that continual improvement is the hallmark of a 21st century organization.”
Often called the “backbone” of the public health system, public health departments are on the front lines of communities’ efforts to protect and promote health and prevent disease and injury. PHAB-accredited health departments demonstrate great leadership by placing their work for peer review, with the goal of using the feedback obtained during the process to improve the services they provide to their communities.
Source: Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
