Davis County continuing accreditation process for health department

FARMINGTON — Davis County's health-department accreditation process is under way, with its top official saying it eventually could cost more than $100,000.

County health director Lewis Garrett told the Davis County Board of Health on Tuesday that the accreditation process likely will cost $5,000 to $10,000 for evaluators to visit the county and "in the six-figure range" for staff time and preparation needed to complete the process.

Garrett later acknowledged that grants might "take a lot of the sting out of what we're having to pony up to do this process."

The county will try to meet 30 standards with 102 measures established by the Public Health Accreditation Board as a way to improve public health departments' quality and performance. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation are the board's funders and partners.

Julie Parker, manager of the county's health promotion bureau, said the process could take 18 months to two years. The next steps involve developing a community health assessment. The county already has begun an internal assessment. Garrett said local data will be compared with federal standards to help the county align its programs where health issues exist.

Many public health agencies in Utah initially were against accreditation because of the potential for added costs, increased workloads and loss of autonomy.

Garrett said opposition nationwide is starting to wane.

"I think we made the right decision to accept the inevitability of this and move on, as painful as it is," he told the board. "Having said that, it's just as bureaucratic as I thought it would be."

But Garrett said he expects future federal grant programs to be tied to accreditation status in the future. Accreditation currently is voluntary but is expected to be mandatory in a few years.

"We just can't not do this and expect to receive federal grants in the future," he said.

— Brice Wallace