Agenda 04-01-2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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PUBLIC HEALTH TASK FORCE 2004: PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS PUBLIC HEALTH IMPROVEMENT PLAN 3) Establish an Office of Accountability in the Division of Public Health that will implement a formal reporting and accountability process for the state and local public health agencies. = Create a Community Wellness Index that will assess state and county - specific health status —a state and county health report card. => Create a set of Best Practice Indicators that will provide county - specific data about the effectiveness of efforts to promote population health. Compile a set of the State Public Health Performance Measures that funders and other stakeholders use to hold DPH accountable. Implement an accountability process that will use accountability data to support and evaluate the effectiveness of state /local efforts to improve the health of the residents of NC. Need Addressed /Rationale North Carolina's public health system is complex, with organizational units at the state, regional and local levels. Ensuring accountability in the areas of performance and fiscal management requires capacity not only at the program and local agency level, but also at the state, where ultimate responsibility for system accountability resides. There is currently no formal organizational structure to manage a public health accountability plan or comprehensive quality improvement process. There is a clear need to centralize accountability functions within the Division of Public Health. Infrastructure /Capacity Improvement Resources requested for this recommendation would support an organizational home for public health accountability in the Division of Public Health in Raleigh. Professional staff employed in this office will be responsible for managing the state's accountability plan, monitoring quality improvement processes both locally and at the state level, analyzing accountability data and disseminating reports. The public health accountability system recommended by the Accountability Committee aims to hold state and local public health agencies accountable for the funding they have been given at the state and federal level and the responsibilities with which they have been charged by state and federal lawmakers. For many health outcomes, the determinants of health status are deeply embedded in social factors that the public health agency can only ameliorate, perhaps only marginally. In other instances, the resources available to a local public health entity to address an important health outcome may be relatively trivial. Recognizing these limitations with respect to measures of local accountability, a public health accountability system should include only those measures which agencies either control or can exert significant influence over. The committee has proposed the creation of a Community Wellness Index (CWT), which will provide state and county- specific "report cards" on health status. These will be broad measures, such as Maternal and Infant health status, Heart Disease and Stroke morbidity and mortality, and Disparities in Premature Death among different racial and ethnic groups. They will give a good sense of the overall "wellness" of the residents of each county and the state as a whole. 14