Thursday, February 28, 2013

First local health agencies, many rural, win national accreditation; is yours seeking it?

Local health departments often operate under the radar, quietly helping keep their communities healthy and safe, and they are especially important in rural areas. Until now there have been no national standards for these essential agencies, but today a national accrediting board gave its seal of approval to nine of them, several serving rural counties.

The Public Health Accreditation Board gave five-year accreditations to the Comanche County Health Department, Lawton, Okla.; the Franklin County Health Department, Frankfort, Ky.; the Livingston County Department of Health, Mt. Morris, N.Y.; the Northern Kentucky Independent District Health Department, the Oklahoma City-County Health Department, the Spokane Regional Health District in Washington, the Public Health Authority of Cabarrus County and its Cabarrus Health Alliance, Kannapolis, N.C.; the Three Rivers District Health Department, Owenton, Ky.; and the West Allis Health Department in Wisconsin. The state health departments in Oklahoma and Washington received the same accreditation.

“This is a truly historic moment in public health,” said Kaye Bender, president of the board, funded by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (Read more)

The accreditation process includes an assessment of the community's health status, which is news in any place in America. More than 125 public health departments across the country have applied for accreditation. Is yours one of them? If not, why not?

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