Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Eight health departments were awarded reaccreditation status by the North Carolina Local Health Department Accreditation (NCLHDA) Board on Nov. 17. They are Anson County Health Department, Catawba County Public Health, Craven County Health Department, Granville Vance Public Health, Harnett County Health Department, Lenoir County Health Department, Macon County Public Health, and Stanly County Health Department.

“We celebrate each health department who has newly completed a reaccreditation cycle. Reaccreditation is a quality improvement process that assures that agencies are continually assessing the needs of their communities and striving to provide the highest quality of service, as possible, to meet these needs. It is also a team effort that requires dedication from health department staff, Boards of Health members, site visitors, and Accreditation Board members. Each of these agencies has demonstrated their ability to maintain and/or exceed the standards established by the NCLHDA program, including throughout their COVID response. Congratulations!” said Margaret Benson Nemitz, NC Local Health Department interim accreditation administrator.

Reaccreditation with Honors designation was awarded to six agencies – Anson County Health Department, Catawba County Public Health, Craven County Health Department, Harnett County Health Department, Lenoir County Health Department and Stanly County Health Department. This honorary designation was implemented for the first time in Fall 2017 to recognize agencies that excelled in their accreditation assessment by missing one or less activities within each of five standards set by the NCLHDA Program.

North Carolina is the first state in the country to mandate accreditation for its local health departments. The purpose of the Accreditation Program is to assure a basic level of capacity and services in each of the local health departments across the state.
The process of accreditation includes three major components – a self-assessment completed by the agency, a site visit by a multidisciplinary team of peers to review performance standards and determination of accreditation status by an independent Accreditation Board comprised of state and local public health officials, Board of Health members, county commissioners and at-large members.

The NC Local Health Department Accreditation Program is a collaboration of the North Carolina Institute for Public Health (part of the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and the North Carolina Association of Local Health Directors.