On May 19, the Beaufort County Public Health Department received reaccreditation from the North Carolina Local Health Department Accreditation Board.

The health department earned reaccreditation after a rigorous four-year, multi-faceted peer review assessment process to ensure it meets or exceeds a set of 147 quality standards and measures for public health. This accreditation should assure Beaufort County residents that the programs and services they receive from the health department are as responsive as possible to the needs of the community.

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 health department; a site visit by a multidisciplinary team of peers to review performance standards; and determination of accreditation status by an independent accreditation board comprised of state and local public-health officials, board of health members, county commissioners and general public members.

“Our accreditation coordinator, managers and the staff deserves all the credit here,” stated Jim Madson, health director for the county. “And, we could not protect health and improve lives without the support of all of our community partners, the county and the board of health. It is nice to know that the accreditation board agrees with what I have known all along — that the operations and programs of the health department are first-rate and that our staff is top quality.”

The N.C. 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), the North Carolina Association of Local Health Directors and the North Carolina Division of Public Health (part of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services).