New Releases 
Website Update
You can now look up the accreditation status of a health department on our website! You can filter the table by health department name, accreditation status, accreditation adjudication date, and accreditation expiration. Click here to check it out!
Updated Good Faith Effort Expectations
Program staff have been hard at work to incorporate your feedback into revising the expectations for the HDSAI good faith effort check that happens each site visit cycle. To ensure a more accurate representation of an agency’s documentation of evidence, the shift now utilizes the Operational Plan Report within the VMSG dashboard to check that at least 80% of activities have some form of documentation uploaded. This shift will ensure more consistent reviews by program staff and the report feature will allow agencies to more easily determine if they are prepared for their site visit. We cover these expectations in detail at your cycle coordination call that we hold with agencies following your 90 day notification.
Accreditation in Action
Congratulations to Winter 2024 Health Departments!
On Friday, May 17, the NCLHDA Board adjudicated nine health departments. Congratulations to the following health departments on completing another cycle of accreditation:
Caswell County Health Department: Reaccredited
Forsyth County Department of Public Health: Reaccredited
Madison County Health Department: Reaccredited with Honors
Moore County Health Department: Reaccredited
Northampton County Health Department: Reaccredited with Honors
Onslow County Health Department: Reaccredited with Honors
Randolph County Public Health: Reaccredited with Honors
Transylvania County Public Health Department: Reaccredited
Wayne County Health Department: Conditionally Accredited
Thank You for your Input!
Wow! We are so grateful for all the program feedback you provided during the month of May. We are spending time this month digesting all that you shared with our program so that we can incorporate what we’ve heard into our work.
Recap of Annual Site Visit Team Training
In May, the NCLHDA Site Visitors completed their annual Site Visit Team Training. Site Visitors are required to attend annual trainings to review policies and procedures for site visits, as well as share their reflections and feedback on the most recent site visit cycles. During this year’s training, Site Visitors noted a pattern they have observed and wished to share it with health departments. Site Visitors noted that when health departments have a team of staff working on the accreditation process (rather than a single staff member handling accreditation), less activities are missed, and the health department is more successful in the accreditation process. Site Visitors encourage health departments to keep this in mind as they are staffing their agency and delegating responsibilities!
Helpful Resources
This month, we want to share some in-house NCIPH resources that may be helpful or relevant to your teams!
Introduction to the Foundational Public Health Services Framework: Online Course
This self-paced course covers the framework’s five foundational public health service areas and eight cross-cutting foundational capabilities. This framework identifies the minimum set of services that governmental public health entities should provide and the minimum package of infrastructure they need to support those services.
North Carolina Public Health Leadership Institute: Virtual Institute, September 2024-May 2025, Applications are open
Applications are open for the North Carolina Public Health Leadership Institute. The institute is a nine-month, intensive leadership program for any staff in a leadership, management or supervisory role. Local and state public health leaders will come together to learn from subject matter experts about leadership principles, communication, critical thinking and organizational change. Participants will attend virtual learning sessions and peer coaching sessions, and they will be encouraged to identify a real-world challenge they want to tackle with their evolving leadership skills.
Key Dates
Friday, July 12: July Board Meeting, 9:00 am-11:30 am
Virtual meeting. This is an open meeting. Additional details will be posted within 2 weeks of the board meeting.
Wednesday, August 7: Office Hours, 9:00-9:45 am
Virtual. There is no cost to attend; however, registration is required. Register.
Interested in exploring all upcoming events? Check out our Calendar page online!
Stories from the Field
Best Practices from Fall 2023: Assurance Standard
Within the Assurance standard (Benchmarks 16-29) our site visit team identified many best practices to highlight in Fall 2023. Today, we’re highlighting two great examples:
Activity 24.3, Catawba County: The Site Visit Team was impressed that the agency is going above and beyond the required staff development plan by enrolling in the North Carolina Department of Labor`s Carolina Star program. The program recognizes leaders in occupational safety and health that are successfully protecting employees from death, injury, and illness by implementing comprehensive and effective safety and health programs and management systems.
Activity 27.3, Macon County: Activity 27.3 states that the local health department shall employ a quality assurance and improvement process to assess the effectiveness of services and improve health outcomes. Macon County Environmental Health conducted a quality improvement plan to help with an obstacle to a new septic applicant. They were able to update application forms to include a checklist of necessary site preparation steps required prior to site visit; to institute a revisit fee to incentivize proper site preparation, to hire two Environmental Health technicians to survey sites prior to site visit by Environmental Health Specialist and ensure site is ready for inspection for onsite waste water permitting process; and to require a picture of site be included in application process and installed printer to facilitate process. The Site Visit team commends the Department for identifying a gap in services and using incremental resources to make changes for accessibility and equity also.
We Want to Hear from You
All of you across the state have unique approaches where you have found success. To help us all learn, we love when you share your tips and tricks for accreditation success with us! If you have a tip or trick that you would like to share, send a summary to NCLHDaccreditation@unc.edu. Stories will be shared via these monthly highlights.