Local public health certification and accreditation in Illinois: blending the old and the new

Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through the Multi-State Learning Collaborative, the Illinois Accreditation Development Project is developing a proposal to reengineer the 15-year-old Illinois local health department certification process. The Project is addressing a variety of political, technical, and resource issues in its attempt to develop a new approach to a mature program that will incorporate more meaningful performance and capacity measures for all local public health practice standards. Both statewide strategic planning and the evolving national momentum toward local public health agency accreditation are motivating the enhancements to the Illinois program. A new proposal that blends the current mandatory certification program with a new voluntary local public health accreditation program is discussed. The proposed new structure enhances the state-operated certification program with specific performance measures and creates a three-tiered voluntary accreditation process governed by a third party accreditation board.