Linking Accreditation and Public Health Outcomes

Abstract

Emerging public health standards, performance assessment tools, and accreditation models hold significant promise for defining and standardizing public health practice, yet the lack of empirical research on their relationship to outcomes represents a serious barrier to adoption. Given the growing interest and momentum related to public health agency assessment and accreditation efforts, there is increasing need for evidence that performance standards and associated accreditation programs are effective means for moving public health systems toward the ultimate goal of population and community health improvement. This article provides an overview of accreditation in health and other industries, and its relationship to outcomes. We examine lessons that might have meaningful public health translations, as well as influences in and on public health that pose challenges for research and evaluation in this area. Finally, we propose a logic model framework to help depict the ways in which we can begin to explore the impact accreditation has on various levels of outcomes. This logic model is intended to guide the development of measures and to serve as a tool to help convey the breadth and depth of research needed to link accreditation to health outcomes.

Synthesizing diverse evidence: the use of primary qualitative data analysis methods and logic models in public health reviews

“…19 It has been suggested that conceptual models (logic models) could prove useful by providing a structure for exploring these complex relationships between public health practice and outcomes. 20 Logic models (also known as impact models) originate from the field of programme evaluation, and are typically diagrams or flow charts that convey relationships between contextual factors, inputs, processes and outcomes. 21 It is argued that logic models are valuable in providing a "roadmap" to illustrate influential relationships and components from inputs to outcomes.…”

“…21 It is argued that logic models are valuable in providing a "roadmap" to illustrate influential relationships and components from inputs to outcomes. 20,22 These models have been used widely in the health promotion literature to identify domains underlying best practice. 23,24,25 The work outlined in this paper aimed to pilot a new approach to systematic review of the evidence, which had the potential to overcome these issues of study design hierarchies, limited available evidence, and complex causal pathways.…”

Recent Advances in Public Health Systems Research in the United States

“…Reviews of more than 90 years of effort to measure, describe, and improve public health practice and systems performance (82,94) show that many of the same basic challenges for measuring systems performance persist. In addition, new and re-emphasized priorities in public health practice, such as voluntary agency accreditation (46,58,72,91), workforce credentialing (12,16,23,68), quality improvement (74,75,85), and service value measurement (36,43,66), will increase expectations for PHSR science to integrate and understand effects of these efforts at multiple systems levels.…”

Interventions to improve the labour market for adults living with physical and/or sensory disabilities in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

“…It was necessary, therefore, to develop a logic model specifically for this review. Originating from the field of programme evaluation, logic models (also known as theoretical, conceptual, or impact models) are typically diagrams or flow charts that illustrate pathways between inputs, strategies, outputs, and shortterm, intermediate and longer-term outcomes (Anderson et al, 2011;Joly et al, 2007). Designed to read from left to right, they provide a valuable road map that spells out how, and for whom, a programme is meant to produce the desired outcomes.…”