Gaining Ground Advances National Public Health Accreditation in Health Departments in Seven States

WASHINGTON - June 11, 2014 - PRLog -- Gaining Ground is a two-year initiative, managed by the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), that will develop sustainable, statewide systems to catalyze public health accreditation and support performance improvement in local, tribal, and state health departments in seven states.

The overall goal of the new national accreditation program for state, territorial, local, and tribal health departments is to provide a catalyst for continuous quality improvement and in turn, improve the impact of health departments in protecting and improving health in their communities.

“The demand to become accredited by the national Public Health Accreditation Board has exceeded expectations, with some states having both the state agency and a number of local agencies already in the application process or accredited.   However, in other states,   applying for accreditation has yet to garner momentum due to a variety of barriers. This program aims to catalyze the momentum for accreditation readiness and quality improvement by supporting coalitions in seven of these states and to develop a sustained capacity for performance improvement,” said Pamela Russo, Senior Program Officer, RWJF.

Gaining Ground will provide $150,000 and individualized coaching to state coalitions in Colorado, California, Iowa, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Utah.  Each state coalition is comprised of state, local, and tribal health departments, and other key stakeholders including public health institutes and schools of public health.   “What we’ve learned from past programs is that a coalition of multiple partners coming together with a common vision is critical to establishing sustainable public health improvements, said Jennifer McKeever, Associate Director for Public Health Improvement, NNPHI. State coalitions are participating in a kick-off meeting this week before the NNPHI Open Forum for Quality Improvement on June 12 -13 in Kansas City, Missouri.

To learn more about NNPHI’s programs related to accreditation and performance improvement, please visit http://nnphi.org/API.

###

About the National Network of Public Health Institutes

Created in 2001 as a forum for public health institutes (PHIs), today NNPHI convenes its members and partners at the local, state, and national levels in efforts to address critical health issues. NNPHI’s mission is to support national public health system initiatives and strengthen PHIs to promote multi-sector activities resulting in measurable improvements of public health structures, systems, and outcomes. Learn more about NNPHI and its member institutes at http://nnphi.org/.

About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

For more than 40 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve the health and health care of all Americans. We are striving to build a national culture of health that will enable all Americans to live longer, healthier lives now and for generations to come. For more information, visit http://www.rwjf.org/.