Fifteen health departments were awarded reaccreditation status by the North Carolina Local Health Department Accreditation (NCLHDA) Board in May, including Hyde County Health Department and Dare County Department of Health and Human Services-Public Health Division, announced the Hyde County Health Department. Others were the Hoke County Health Department, Orange County Health Department, Burke County Health Department, Caldwell County Health Department, Durham County Department of Public Health, Beaufort County Public Health Department, Cleveland County Health Department, Jones County Health Department, Cumberland County Department of Public Health, AppHealthCare, Brunswick County Health Services, Cabarrus Health Alliance and Davie County Health and Human Services-Division of Public Health.

“We are delighted to recognize these agencies as reaccredited health departments and applaud the efforts of all those involved in accomplishing this goal. Each of these agencies has demonstrated their ability to maintain and/or exceed the standards established by the NCLHDA program. 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,” comments Jo Morgan, NC Local Health Department interim accreditation administrator.

Reaccreditation with Honors designation was awarded to 11 agencies: Dare County Department of Health and Human Services-Public Health Division, Hoke County Health Department, Orange County Health Department, Durham County Department of Public Health, Beaufort County Public Health Department, Cleveland County Health Department, Jones County Health Department, Cumberland County Department of Public Health, AppHealthCare, Brunswick County Health Services, and Davie County Health and Human Services-Division of Public Health. This honorary designation was implemented for the first time in the fall of 2017 to recognize agencies that especially excelled in their accreditation assessment by missing one or less activities within each of the five standards set by the NCLHDA program. Program administrators were especially pleased to see that this special recognition was achieved by such a diverse group of local health departments.

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 a 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.

Hyde County Health director Luana Gibbs states, “I am so proud of the hard work the Health Department does to accomplish this designation. We have been accredited every time we have been reviewed, and this speaks to the teamwork and knowledge of our staff. Way to go Hyde County Health Department!”

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