Improving the Health of Residents by Building a Better Public Health System
Submission Date: July 2015
State/Territory Submitted on the Behalf of: Indiana
States/Territories Involved: Indiana
Funding Source: CDC
CDC Funding:Yes
CDC Funding (Specified):Preventive Health and Health Services Block Grant
Domain Addressed:Health Systems Strategies
Public Health Issue:- Limited health department resources for alleviating public health threats make it important for health departments to perform even more effectively and efficiently. Taking steps to improve quality and achieve agency accreditation can lead to a better public health system and better health outcomes.
- Indiana’s health department workers with advanced degrees are more likely to have earned them in areas outside of public health.
- The availability and flexibility of Preventive Health and Health Services (PHHS) Block Grant funding helps health departments build capacity to reach objectives related to performance which aren’t sufficiently supported by disease-specific funding.
- The Indiana State Department of Health (ISDH) used PHHS Block Grant funds to assess how well state and local public health agencies are functioning in Indiana, to create training opportunities for their workforce, and to make health data readily available for the agencies and organizations in the state that use it to guide their work.
- To ensure that Indiana public health programs are supported as they work on improving the quality of their services, the ISDH created a new Office of Public Health Policy and Performance Management. This office is helping local health departments achieve accreditation, part of a national voluntary effort to measure and improve public health department performance against a set of national standards.
- To help local health departments assess how well their programs & services meet the needs of residents and to move them closer to accreditation, ISDH enabled the participation of 70+ local health departments in the National Public Health Performance Standards program. These standards guide health departments in making sure they have a strong system in place to meet their public health challenges. Four local health departments will receive ISDH assistance in strategic planning and quality improvement skill building to enhance their efforts in these areas.
- To replace up to 250 separate reports that communities and hospitals use to obtain data they need to monitor health, a new online data warehouse was developed which puts all public health data in one spot. In the first 20 months the site had over 9000 unique visitors. The value of this public resource is indicated by its duplication in at least one other state and the large number of inquiries from additional states & countries on duplicating the Indiana model.
- To advance a priority of the Indiana State Health Improvement Plan and impact a HP2020 objective related to core competencies, ISDH began a major effort in 2014 to train their workforce. HP 2020 is a set of national health objectives on improving the health of Americans. Indiana public health workers now choose from over 1200 online, public health courses to update their skills and knowledge. Online training helps controls costs by omitting travel to a training site. Nearly 800 Indiana public health workers are registered to take advantage of this on-demand training. Over 600 courses have been completed by Indiana participants to date.
- All of these steps help the ISDH improve the health of state residents through better state and local agency performance. They also sustain the Indiana accomplishments achieved in the National Public Health Improvement Initiative.
Public Health Practice
State Contact Information:
IN
Katherine Hokanson
Indiana State Department of Health
317-234-2865
KGatz@isdh.in.gov