178788 Accreditation as a model to promote multidisciplinary approach towards performance management: The Illinois experience

Wednesday, October 29, 2008: 9:10 AM

Vamsi Vasireddy, MD, MPH, DrPHc , School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL
Elissa Bassler , Illinois Public Health Institute, Chicago, IL
Laura Landrum, MUPP , Illinois Public Health Institute, Chicago, IL
Accreditation is one of the latest topics being promoted as a tool for performance management and quality improvement for local health departments. Illinois is one of the participating states in the Multi-state Learning Collaborative (MLC) funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The goal of Illinois' accreditation project is to test accreditation as a performance improvement tool among local health departments (LHD). A total of 50 performance measures and 8 standards were developed during the MLC-1 phase using NACCHO's operational definition of public health, CDC's 10 essential public health services, and the IL certification code. The accreditation project consists of a self-study process, tabletop review, site visit, and evaluation; and implemented in 7 diverse LHDs. The self-study process was designed to help each LHD demonstrate their performance by documenting evidence related to each measure. A self-study tool was designed to identify priorities for improvement. LHDs are required to rate their performance on the 50 measures and prioritize the measures that need improvement. The evidence was reviewed by a panel of experts through a tabletop exercise and the ratings were compared. Site visits were conducted by an expert panel and discrepancies in ratings were addressed. Upon completion of the site visit, recommendations were made by the expert panel to the Illinois Accreditation Task Force (IATF) on whether the LHD meets accreditation status or not. IATF awards accreditation based on recommendations from the site visit panel and additional evidence. An evaluation of each LHD's experience was conducted using qualitative research methods which, yielded rich data regarding the influence of accreditation on performance improvement. The presentation discusses the process of designing, implementing, and evaluating accreditation. Results from Illinois will provide an insight in to how accreditation works in a diverse set of health departments and what can be done to improve the process.

Learning Objectives:
1. Understand concepts of accreditation for County health departments 2. Demonstrate the process of designing an accreditation program for a diverse set of health departments 3. Apply performance standards to evaluate performance 4. Design an evaluation program, using qualitative research methods, to assess the influence of accreditation on participating health departments 5. Discuss the role of accreditation in improving the performance of participating health departments

Keywords: Accreditation, Leadership

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the primary author and the work has been done by me
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

See more of: Quality Improvement Through Accreditation and Performance Standards
See more of: Health Administration