Oral

Disparate and scattered populations create challenges for local jurisdictions in their delivery of Essential Public Health Services. To address these challenges, local jurisdictions should assess public health capacity, identify gaps and overlaps in service delivery, and mobilize community and public health system partners in performance improvement processes. Over the last decade, the National Public Health Performance Standards Program (NPHPSP) and Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) have provided the means for building community and regional partnerships and improving the delivery of Essential Public Health Services within and across jurisdictional lines. In particular, NPHPSP helps assess public health system capacity; and MAPP provides a framework for applying NPHPSP data toward public health system improvements. More recently, the Operational Definition of a Functional Local Health Department (LHD) has created guidance on improving public health agency service delivery and preparing for National Accreditation. For jurisdictions with limited resources, regionalization using Operational Definition standards offers a strategy to help LHDs collaborate regionally in order to improve public health service delivery. Since 2003, Project Public Health Ready (PPHR) has helped LHDs and regions increase their preparedness capacity by equipping them with sustainable tools using a continuous quality improvement model. PPHR Criteria allows LHDs to individually and regionally assess and improve their capacity in terms of emergency preparedness and response planning, workforce capacity development, and exercises. This session will highlight how local jurisdictions have used NPHPSP, MAPP, Operational Definition standards and PPHR Criteria for improving Essential Public Health Services delivery through regional collaboration.

Session Objectives: 1) Describe methods and outline strategies for initiating regional collaboration in the context of performance improvement processes such as MAPP, NPHPSP, Operational Definition and PPHR 2) Provide concrete examples of how regional collaborations have led to more effective and efficient delivery of the ten Essential Public Health Services 3) Articulate the purpose and goals of NPHPSP, MAPP, Operational Definition and PPHR as well as the range of technical assistance resources available to users

CE Credits: CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing