We are an accredited health department and are committed to supporting aspiring-health departments along their accreditation journey, especially in our state. Over the past year, as more health departments have started collecting documentation, we have been receving an increasing number of requests/questions regarding specific documentation. Although we don't mind providing this advice one-on-one, it has begun to become time-consuming when dealing with repeated requests for the same documents. We do have a PHAB Learning Community (support group) throughout our state that meets monthly via conference call that has been active for 2 years, but has not reached a point where we have a central database of documents.
Have any other accredited health departments done a QI project to improve this process of sharing advice and documents with those that are just starting or along their accreditation journey?
Hi Gurleen,
Hi Gurleen,
This very question/premise came up in a state-wide accreditation meeting a few weeks ago. Currently Ohio has the Ohio Profile & Performance Database hosted by our state HD, but the system is cumbersome, slow, and impossible to know when updated documentation is provided. So we do technically have a system but there is tremendous room for improvement.
With that being said, I'll stop back here if and or when I hear more about solutions we might be pursuing in Ohio to this topic. Interested to hear what others may be doing.
Brandon Palinski, MPH-VPH, SIT
Quality Assurance & Accreditation Coordinator
Toledo-Lucas County Health Department
419.213.4136
palinskb@co.lucas.oh.us
www.lucascountyhealth.com
Thanks for sharing, Brandon.
Thanks for sharing, Brandon. I'm glad you (Ohio) have a starting place, at least and that there is awareness around needed improvements. I would appreciate hearing more once you all get to a happy place :)
Gurleen Roberts, MPH
Director of Quality Management
Cobb & Douglas Public Health
Marietta, GA
gurleen.roberts@dph.ga.gov
Hello Gurleen!
Hello Gurleen!
If you’d like to continue supporting statewide efforts but have limited time to provide 1-on-1 coaching and technical assistance, you could consider developing a community of practice. One definition of a a community of practice is:
a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.
This model could help facilitate an environment for peer-to-peer coaching, instead of an envirnment where everyone's solely looking to your department for guidance. Perhaps this environment would remove some of the burden from your team and allow for other accreditation leaders in your state to provide TA.
I wonder if a shared Dropbox folder (organized by PHAB Domain) would meet your file-sharing needs for the short-term. Sorting files by Domain/Standard/Measure/Documentation number should be easy to navigate unless the folder becomes over-whelmed with files.
Ty Kane
Thanks, Ty. I will propose
Thanks, Ty. I will propose that as a starting place and hope that I could get some volunteers to help implement something together.
Gurleen Roberts, MPH
Director of Quality Management
Cobb & Douglas Public Health
Marietta, GA
gurleen.roberts@dph.ga.gov