Nebraska's Local Health Departments Making the Healthy Choice the Easy Choice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=JQoVh4tGFQo
History of Public Health in Nebraska - 150 years
Our Services are for Everyone
You don't have to have special circumstances such as low income to receive many of our services. Everyone benefits from public health services that keep our community free from disease. No one will be denied our services based on an inability to pay. Please see Programs / Services for information on the wide range of public health services provided by Elkhorn Logan Valley Public Health Department. ELVPHD serves clients in their preferred language at no cost to them.
What is Public Health?
Public health is the proactive, preventative approach to health concerns that affect a society as a whole. Public health is concerned with many facets of life, including emergency medical services, environmental health, maternal and children’s health, nutrition and wellness.
One important way that ELVPHD tries to reach and serve all people in the service area is by ensuring that the health information provided is health literate. In 2015, ELVPHD was designated a Health Literacy Champion by the Nebraska Association of Local Health Directors! This means that ELVPHD successfully met the criteria for Health Literacy Champion by completing the Health Literacy Check-up and Health Literacy Action Plan.
Public Health Accreditation 
Elkhorn Logan Valley Public Health Department (ELVPHD) achieved national accreditation through the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) in November, 2017. ELVPHD is one of fewer than 200 health departments across the United States that have thus far achieved accreditation through PHAB since the organization launched in 2011.
Public health accreditation is the measurement of health department performance against a set of nationally recognized, practice-focused and evidence based standards. PHAB’s accreditation process seeks to advance quality and performance within public health departments. Accreditation standards define the expectations for all public health departments that seek to become accredited. To receive accreditation, a health department must undergo a rigorous, multi-faceted, peer reviewed assessment process to ensure it meets or exceeds a set of quality standards and measures. The peer-review process provides valuable feedback to inform health departments of their strengths and areas for improvement, so that they can better protect and promote the health of the people they serve in their communities. Residents of a community served by a nationally accredited health department can be assured that their health department has demonstrated the capacity to protect and promote the health of that community.
Performance Management and Quality Improvement
How are we doing?
Our mission is to promote and improve health for all residents of our four county area. We use both performance management and quality improvement to help us see how we are doing on our goals.
Performance management helps us assure high quality operations and program delivery. Performance management at ELVPHD is used to help show how we are impacting the health of our community members. By measuring specific goals, we can see how well we are doing and focus our efforts on areas that need improvement. Each quarter we review how we are meeting our goals and objectives.
Click here and then go to the 'Performance Management' folder to see our quarterly performance management reports.
ELVPHD’s quality improvement program helps us find the best ways to better our programs, their goals, and departmental operations. Quality improvement uses a cycle of measurement, analysis, and improvement. Input from program coordinators and the public offers a way to increase our effectiveness. Our staff submits project to our quality improvement team who then reviews & selects projects and works with staff to complete the quality improvement process with the ultimate goal of making our programs and operations the most efficient and successful possible to best serve the people of our health district.
The 10 Essential Public Health Services
- Monitor health status to identify and solve community health problems
- Diagnose and Investigate health problems and health hazards to the community
- Inform, Educate and Empower people about health issues
- Mobilize community partnerships to identify and solve health problems
- Develop Policies and Plans that support individual and community health efforts
- Enforce laws and regulations that protect health and ensure safety
- Link people to needed personal health services and assure the provision of healthcare when otherwise unavailable
- Assure a competent public and personal health care workforce
- Evaluate effectiveness, accessibility and quality of personal and population-based health services for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems
- Research for new insights and innovative solutions to health problems
Updated 12/19/2017