The New Mexico Department of Health (NMHealth) announced today that it has been reaccredited by the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) for five more years. (Photo: Courtesy KOAT TV, Albuquerque)
Source: New Mexico Department of Health
“I’m very proud of our team for this achievement,” said Patrick Allen, NMHealth Secretary. “Accreditation of the New Mexico Department of Health is a critical validation that we have the tools we need to achieve our strategic goal of becoming the healthiest state in the nation by 2040.”
Public Health accreditation measures a health department’s performance against a set of nationally recognized, practice-focused, and evidence-based standards. It ensures that health departments are delivering essential public health services and foundational capabilities to their communities.
The non-profit PHAB works to advance and transform public health proactively by championing performance improvement, strong infrastructure, and innovation. PHAB’s accreditation program, which receives support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sets standards against which the nation’s governmental public health departments can continuously improve the quality of their services and performance.
Often called the “backbone” of the public health system, public health departments are on the front lines of communities’ efforts to protect and promote health and prevent disease and injury. PHAB-accredited health departments demonstrate great leadership by submitting their work for peer review, with the goal of using the feedback obtained during the process to improve the services they provide to their communities. Through this process, the communities they serve experience a wide range of benefits. These include better accountability, improved health equity, higher quality of performance, greater transparency and improved workforce development.
NMHealth was first accredited by PHAB in 2015, becoming only the 12th state health department in the United States to be awarded the honor. Today, NMHealth is among 42 accredited state agencies, six tribal health departments and 397 local health organizations.
“We are extremely pleased with the accreditation program where NMHealth, along with many others, are successfully maintaining their five-year accreditation status through PHAB,” said PHAB President and CEO Paul Kuehnert, DNP, RN, FAAN.
