Accreditation

The Cambridge Public Health Department has been nationally accredited since 2018 by the Public Health Accreditation Board, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the continuous quality improvement of public health departments. This designation signifies that CPHD meets a rigorous set of standards, making it a high-performing organization.

Accreditation provides a means for a public health department to identify performance improvement opportunities, enhance management, develop leadership, and strengthen relationships with members of the community.

The accreditation process will challenge the health department to think about its roles and responsibilities and how it fulfills them. It will encourage and stimulate quality and performance improvement in the health department.

Benefits of Accreditation

Accreditation positively impacts health departments and the communities they serve. A survey of accredited health departments showed:

  • 95% of accredited health departments said accreditation stimulates quality and performance improvement opportunities
  • 78% said that accreditation has strengthened their relationship with key partners
  • 79% said accreditation has improved the health department’s accountability to external stakeholders
  • 68% said that since becoming accredited, the utilization of resources within the health department has improved

Requirements for Accreditation

Health departments seeking national accreditation must demonstrate that they can effectively provide the 10 Essential Public Health Services, which are:

  • Assess and monitor population health status, factors that influence health, and community needs and assets (this includes a Community Health Assessment)
  • Investigate, diagnose, and address health problems and hazards affecting the population
  • Communicate effectively to inform and educate people about health, factors that influence it, and how to improve it
  • Strengthen, support, and mobilize communities and partnerships to improve health
  • Create, champion, and implement policies, plans, and laws that impact health (this includes a Community Health Improvement Plan)
  • Utilize legal and regulatory actions designed to improve and protect the public’s health
  • Contribute to an effective system that enables equitable access to the individual services and care needed to be healthy
  • Build and support a diverse and skilled public health workforce
  • Improve and innovate public health functions through ongoing evaluation, research, and continuous quality improvement
  • Build and maintain a strong organizational infrastructure for public health

For more information about the health department’s role in the accreditation process, contact Kristin Ward, manager of performance and quality improvement, at [email protected].

Updated: April 14, 2022