Accreditation and QI, Iowa

The director of the Iowa Department of Public Health commissioned a workgroup in the summer of 2004 to assess the current structure of public health service delivery and to make recommendations for redesigning public health in the state.

The Iowa Public Health Standards, which came out of that effort, describe the basic public health services and infrastructure that all Iowans can reasonably expect from local and state public health.

The Iowa Public Health Standards apply to local boards of health and the state board of health. The state board of health is responsible for ensuring compliance with the state criteria of the Iowa Public Health Standards.

Iowa also participates in the Multi-State Learning Collaborative (MLC) project, which assesses quality improvement strategies to enhance the work of public health departments.