Agenda - 12-06-2004-6b - Laserfiche WebLink

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z the six counties in their endeavor, Ron Holdway and Rosemary Summers participated on two different site visitor accrediting teams -- Mr. Holdway for Buncombe County and Dr. Summers for New Hanover County, Generally, all six counties engaged in the pilot process report that the initial process was valuable in establishing a quality assurance function within each department that examined all programs and processes against the standards in the accreditation tool, The NC Association of Local Health Directors and the NC Department of Health and Human Services prepared a videotape summary of the experiences of the six pilot counties. This videotape is available for review from the County's Health Department. As a result of the pilot, the accreditation criteria and process have been revised and will be "re-piloted" with four additional counties in the winter of 2004-2005, The Orange County Board of Health believes that accreditation of local health departments is an important step in recognizing the competence of public health departments and passed a resoluticn favoring mandatory accreditation with ongoing State funding to each health department beginning in the year of initial accreditation to support the accreditation process and to ensure that quality assurance efforts continue beyond the accreditation year, This is the recommendation contained in the final report of the Public Health Task Force. The North Carolina Association of County Commissioners has expressed some concerns regarding the mandatory accreditation provision of the Task Force Recommendations. The attached resolution calls for the Orange County Board of Commissioners to support voluntary accreditation and joins the Board of Health in recommending State appropriation of $50,000 per year of ongoing funding to each local health department. Same counties' commissioners have expressed concern that accreditation will cost too much in terms of potential upgrades needed to meet accreditation standards, While some local health departments may need additional resources in order to meet standards, the NCALHD believes that the majority will be able to meet the proposed standards, Examples of the benefits of accreditation include: • Utilizes a publicly and professionally accepted mechanism for demonstrating the competence of organizations ("seal of approval"); • Establishes a basic minimum level of uniformity in local ptablic health services; • Provides a framework for quality assurance and quality improvement; • Provides data for benchmarking and best practices; • Serves as a tool for local decision-making, evaluation and monitoring; • Serves as an index for allocating local resources; • Demonstrates accountability to stakeholders; • Enhances agency credibility among public and private partners; Enhances agency image and improves community and consumer confidence; and • Provides competitive advantage for procuring funding, FINANCIAL IMPACT: None at this time. The resolution calls for the allocation of resources by the State to engage in the accreditation process, The long-term financial implications of Orange County participation in the process or the assessment of outcomes as a result of the process cannot be determined with any reliability at this time. Any financial implications would have to be evaluated and addressed as part of normal budget deliberations by the Board of Commissioners.