Oneida Nation Maintains National Accreditation Status through the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB)

Maintaining Accreditation through PHAB Ensures the Oneida Nation’s Capacity to Continue to Evolve, Improve and Advance

The Oneida Nation announced it has successfully completed a review process to maintain national accreditation status through the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB). In maintaining its accreditation status for another five years, the Oneida Nation has demonstrated that it meets PHAB’s quality standards and measures and has the capacity to continue to evolve, improve and advance the health of the Oneida Community.

The non-profit PHAB works to advance and transform public health practice by championing performance improvement, strong infrastructure and innovation. PHAB’s accreditation program, which receives support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), sets standards against which the nation’s governmental public health departments can continuously improve the quality of their services and performance.

“We are proud of our team for the hard work and dedication to the programs and services we offer our community,” said Debra Santiago, Public Health Manager, Oneida Nation Community Health Services. “Through the reaccreditation process, we expanded and enhanced our programs, sharing the successes with our community. We are grateful for the opportunity to work with PHAB to achieve this huge milestone and will continue to work hard to always meet the needs of the community. This has been a rewarding experience, and we are truly appreciative to our team and to PHAB for giving us this opportunity.”

The Oneida Nation achieved national initial accreditation status through PHAB on November 20, 2018, after undergoing a rigorous, multi-faceted, peer-reviewed assessment process to ensure it met a set of quality standards and measures. Today’s announcement goes a step further by demonstrating that the Oneida Nation has the capacity to become increasingly effective at improving the health of the community.

The Community Health Services (CHS) Department of the Oneida Comprehensive Health Division (OCHD) is recognized as the tribal public health department for the Oneida Nation and is responsible for the coordination of public health accreditation. Comprised of five individual teams, the CHS Department works to assure the 10 Essential Public Health Services are available to the Oneida Community. These teams include the following: Community Health Case Management; Community Health Long‑Term Care Case Management; Health Promotion/Disease Prevention; Nutrition Services; and Population-Based Programming.

“We are extremely pleased to be at the point in the accreditation program where the Oneida Nation, along with many others, are successfully maintaining their five-year accreditation status through PHAB,” said PHAB President and CEO Paul Kuehnert, DNP, RN, FAAN. “In so doing, these health departments are assuring their communities that the value of accreditation is long-term — not a one-time recognition — and that continual improvement is the hallmark of a 21st-century organization.”

Often called the “backbone” of the public health system, public health departments are on the front lines of communities’ efforts to protect and promote health and prevent disease and injury. PHAB-accredited health departments demonstrate great leadership by placing their work for peer review, with the goal of using the feedback obtained during the process to improve the services they provide to their communities.

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