2014.ISDS.Abstracts.Final.pdf


ISDS Annual Conference Proceedings 2014. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
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ISDS 2014 Conference Abstracts

Preparing for State Health Department Accreditation: 
Pivotal Roles for Public Health Surveillance
Christopher D. Williams*

DrPH Program, University of Illinois at Chicago, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

Objective
To specify the pertinent roles of public health surveillance in 

meeting documentation requirements for voluntary state health 
department accreditation.

Introduction
On January 24, 2014, the Public Health Accreditation Board 

(PHAB) released, to the public, its Standards & Measures Version 
1.5 guidance document for voluntary public health department 
accreditation. 1 Specifically, Standard 1.2 of the guidance 
encompasses data collection.  Two measures of Standard 1.2 
stipulate the requirements of surveillance and their purposes in the 
context of PHAB accreditation. First, according to Measure 1.2.1A: 
24/7 surveillance system or set of program surveillance systems, 
the purpose of the measure is to assess the health department’s 
process for collecting and managing health data for public health 
surveillance. Second, according to Measure 1.2.2A: Communicate 
with Surveillance Sites, the purpose of the measure is to assess the 
health department’s regular contact with sites who report surveillance 
data to the health department. Health departments that are applying for 
voluntary accreditation through PHAB beginning July 1, 2014, must 
adhere to the current Standards & Measures Version 1.5 guidance 
document. Given the recent effective date of the application period 
under Standards & Measures Version 1.5, there are very few, if any, 
examples of required documentation that state health departments 
(SHDs) must submit in order to meet each public health surveillance-
specific measure. Accreditation document libraries provided examples 
for health department applicants under Standards & Measures Version 
1.0. Because they are no longer applicable to accreditation, examples 
pertaining to Standards & Measures Version 1.0 have been removed 
from many documentation library websites.

We specifically aim to highlight one state’s informatics approach 
to meeting the documentation requirements of PHAB’s Standards 
& Measures Version 1.5, in respect to public health surveillance 
measures. Due to the dearth of documentation examples for PHAB’s 
Standards & Measures 1.5, Standard 1.2 public health surveillance 
measures, this perspective could be helpful to other SHDs seeking 
voluntary accreditation exemplifying an approach to identification of 
process(es) and/or protocol(s) for the collection, review, and analysis 
of comprehensive surveillance data on multiple health conditions 
from multiple sources.

Methods
When considering which documentation of process, protocol, or set 

of processes or protocols to include in adherence to the public health 
surveillance measures, 2the seven ongoing elements of any public 
health surveillance system can provide a roadmap. The elements are 
listed as follows:

Planning and Systems Design
Data Collection
Data Management and Collation
Analysis
Interpretation
Dissemination

Application to Public Health Programs
Based on the elements of a public health surveillance system and 

the documentation requirements of the two relevant PHAB public 
health surveillance measures, a documentation selection matrix of 
elements of a public health surveillance system and PHAB public 
health surveillance measure criteria is under development, and will 
be piloted in early November 2014. Examples of internal (within 
the SHD) and external surveillance systems (supportive of SHD 
surveillance) will be assessed using the matrix.

Results
The documentation selection matrix will be pilot tested for two 

weeks at the SHD. Subsequently, results will be analyzed and a 
summary report will be generated by the third week in November 
2014. Graphical depictions of the results will be produced and made 
available for review.

Conclusions
An impetus for presentation at the ISDS conference is to garner 

feedback from attendees regarding improvement and utility of 
the matrix in selecting appropriate documentation to meet PHAB 
Standards & Measures Version 1.5 public health surveillance measure 
criteria. The matrix could serve as an asset in providing tangible 
documentation examples for PHAB’s public health surveillance 
measures.

Keywords
surveillance; PHAB; matrix; accreditation; SHD

References

References
Public Health Accreditation Board. (2014). PHAB standards and 

measures, version 1.5. Retrieved from http://www.phaboard.org/wp-
content/uploads/SM-Version-1.5-Board-adopted-FINAL-01-24-2014.
docx.pdf

Thomas G. Savel, MD, Public Health Informatics and Technology 
Program Office, CDC, Office of Surveillance, Epidemiology, 
and Laboratory Services, 2500 Century Center, MS E55, Atlanta, 
GA 30329. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/Mmwr/preview/
mmwrhtml/su6103a5.htm

*Christopher D. Williams
E-mail: cwilli52@uic.edu    

Online Journal of Public Health Informatics * ISSN 1947-2579 * http://ojphi.org * (1):e174, 201