Public Health Saves Lives
What We Stand For
Mission
Prevent. Promote. Protect. Franklin County
Vision
Public Health Saves Lives
Values
Helpfulness, Equity, Reliability, Optimism, Efficiency, Service
The Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) accredits public health departments to strengthen public health infrastructure and transform governmental public health.
Through public health accreditation and promotion of innovation, we support health departments in their work to promote and protect the health of the communities they serve. We believe both accreditation and innovation are critical to public health transformation; together they can ensure that health departments are continually improving in line with national public health standards while building health and equity.
https://phaboard.org/
- What are the benefits of Accreditation?
- What did we do to become accredited?
- What strengths and areas of improvement have we identified through accreditation?
- What happens now that we are accredited?
Accreditation showcases the commitment to community health across the local public health system and demonstrates to the public and policy makers that the Health Department is achieving high standards in the work that it does internally and externally.
The Public Health Accreditation Board standards focus on population health – the health and health outcomes of the population that lives, works, and plays in our community. Throughout the process, we demonstrated how we address our community’s public health needs, as well as our internal capacity to manage program operations.
Our Accreditation Team began work to identify documents meeting the PHAB standards. The documents were submitted to PHAB in April of 2012. Our three site visitors reviewed our documents in 6 months and came for a site visit October 22-23, 2012. The Site Visit Team spent two days at Franklin County Health Department and held meetings with staff members, partners, and governance representatives to discuss how the Health Department meets the Public Health Accreditation Board standards. The site visitors also toured the Franklin County Public Health Center. We received word from PHAB of our five-year accredited status on February 27, 2013.
Examples of Health Department documentation submitted to PHAB:
· Board of Health (BOH) minutes reviewing and approving policies.
· Franklin County MAPP minutes reviewing local data and updating CHIP goals.
· Kentucky food laws and regulations and FCHD enforcement of those laws and regulations.
· Agency-wide policies and procedures.
· Emergency operations plans and procedures.
One of the goals of the accreditation process is to identify our three greatest strengths and three greatest opportunities for improvement. The Site Visit Report describes the site visitors’ findings in these areas. Strengths highlighted are strong community partnerships, model example of Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) and QI activities. Opportunities for improvement included funding, routine sharing of surveillance data with community partners and improving the analysis and exposition of local data.
Being accredited is a starting point for continuous improvement. In order to maintain accredited status, we will submit annual reports to PHAB describing how we are addressing our areas for improvement. After five years, FCHD became reaccredited in March 2019. We are proud of our organization, board and staff on this momentous achievement.
Essential Public Health Services
(Revised, 2020)
The 10 Essential Public Health Services provide a framework for public health to protect and promote the health of all people in all communities.
- Assess and monitor population health status, factors that influence health, and community needs and assets
- Investigate, diagnose, and address health problems and hazards affecting the population
- Communicate effectively to inform and educate people about health, factors that influence it, and how to improve it
- Strengthen, support, and mobilize communities and partnerships to improve health
- Create, champion, and implement policies, plans, and laws that impact health
- Utilize legal and regulatory actions designed to improve and protect the public’s health
- Assure an effective system that enables equitable access to the individual services and care needed to be healthy
- Build and support a diverse and skilled public health workforce
- Improve and innovate public health functions through ongoing evaluation, research, and continuous quality improvement
- Build and maintain a strong organizational infrastructure for public health
Updated: October 2, 2022