Building Accreditation Readiness in Kentucky Local Health Departments: A Collaborative Approach

The Kentucky Health Department Association (KHDA) is a collaborative effort of local health department (LHD) leaders to share resources and work together to improve public health in Kentucky. KHDA members were surveyed to assess progress toward completion of five specific areas required for accreditation – the three prerequisites (strategic plan, community health needs assessment, community health improvement plan), quality improvement plans and a process for the evaluation of policies and procedures. Lastly, an open-ended question allowed survey participants to list additional accreditation readiness needs. Surveys were returned by 54% of Kentucky LHDs. Results showed that Quality Improvement Plans and Community Health Improvement Plans had been completed by the least number of participants while the majority of participants had developed a process for evaluating policies and procedures. The open-ended question regarding additional accreditation readiness needs revealed a strong desire by Kentucky health departments to collaborate/network on the accreditation readiness process and to share models, samples and examples of the PHAB prerequisites and other policies and procedures. From the survey results, an action plan was created to increase the level of accreditation readiness via a collaborative learning process. To begin, a listing of accreditation resources was created and added to the Kentucky Department for Public Health website. Contact information from individual health departments on specific accreditation items was also added to the website to promote collaborative information sharing. A monthly accreditation coordinators group was also formed. Group meetings consist of LHD representatives sharing presentations of accreditation readiness success stories and lessons learned. In addition, representatives from KHDA contacted Kentucky universities regarding public health student practicum placements and the group members were educated on how to utilize students for accreditation projects benefiting both the student with a field placement and the LHD with additional manpower for accreditation projects.