From a health standpoint, the Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) is the leading local health agency in Georgia, USA. The agency is best known for combating illness, accident, and disability, improves the state of health in the city, and plans for preparedness measures to deal with emergencies and disasters. After an estimated 30 years of merging with other agencies, the General Assembly returned DPH as its state organization in 2011. DPH is organized into various departments, branches, services, and departments at the state level. DPH funds and works with the state’s county health departments and all the public health authorities in Georgia on a local level.
The Department of Public Health (DPH) was founded as an autonomous agency on July 1, 2011, to continue the public health mission of improving Georgians' health. DPH is organized into nine branches at the state level, with 40 services and offices (Georgia Department of Public Health, 2019). DPH provides funding and administration for public health providers and activities across all 159 counties and municipal health authorities throughout Georgia by 18 health districts. DPH hires almost 7,000 people throughout the state and is responsible for improving and maintaining the welfare of Georgia's municipalities and the entire population.
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In 2014, the Georgia Department of Public Health expanded the Good to Great path to encompass more district and state officials and employees (Abercrombie, 2018). The internal Good to Great curriculum has been consistent with the organization's quality assurance and success management programs over the last year, as one of these initiatives promotes the agency's quality culture. The department also conducted Good to Great design training to provide personnel with a thorough analysis and interpretation of each program level and concept (Abercrombie, 2018). The Good to Great program will collaborate with programs over the next year to complete the Good to Great diagnostic method and create work plans to support them in their trip. In addition, during the following year, the agency plans to present the Built to Last concepts around the board. This increased involvement of district and state office teams would help to improve the organization's service culture.
Strengths of the Georgia DPH
Partnerships with other health agencies, founders of respected and influential programs, and orchestration of fiscally responsible programs are among the Georgia Department of Public Health's strengths. Furthermore, the agency has shown that it has a highly educated, dedicated, and devoted workforce (Georgia Department of Public Health, 2019). The agency is more focused on research, having level 5 personnel, having the most up-to-date data and data infrastructure, developing internal relationships and having well-developed local and state communications. Finally, the agency has shown continuous growth, inventions, and creativity, and solid emergency response and management capability.
Weaknesses of the Georgia DPH
The department faces inherent coordination problems and difficulties in attracting and maintaining competent employees and inadequate technology, poor data storage, a shortage of good silos, and ineffective internal communication processes and procedures (Georgia Department of Public Health, 2019). In addition, the agency is hampered by conflicting interests.
Opportunities of the Georgia DPH
The agency has a lot of scope for forming new and improved relationships. In addition, the agency has a lot of space to develop in terms of emerging technologies, reengineering market processes for Enterprise Systems Modernization, policy assistance, and the prospect of new grants (Georgia Department of Public Health, 2019). In addition, the department will begin relating to public health research, social media, and academic collaborations.
Threats on the Georgia DPH
Federal finances, healthcare policy and legislation (changes), the economic cycle, a lack of trained and professional DPH employees, siloed federal funding, globalization and disease transmission, and competing with organizations with more significant resources are all challenges to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
Quality is a foundational aspect within DPH, as it is a pillar of accreditation. The Georgia Department of Public Health must continue to develop its policies and facilities to improve the health of Georgians. Any of the solutions outlined in this strategy is focused on the concept of continuous quality management in DPH's program and service delivery (Abercrombie, 2018). DPH promotes a quality culture and demonstrates this dedication through various programs, including workforce quality assurance preparation, creating a Quality Improvement Council and a Quality Improvement Plan, and the implementation of quality improvement projects across the department.
Recommendations
DPH should be more dedicated to achieving high levels of efficiency. As a result, the Department of Public Health should introduce a new performance assessment framework to support services with defining and documenting performance metrics daily (Hadley, 2015). Programs create and apply action plans that detail their policies and activities to pursue the strategic plan's general targets and objectives. Also, the department should incorporate Performance metrics, baselines, and milestones in the action plans for continuing performance evaluation and development opportunities. The Performance Management Team should begin to examine and evaluate the program performance metrics thoroughly. Monitoring the agency's efficiency ensures that the business is running smoothly and efficiently.
Conclusion
The Georgia Department of Public Health (DPH) aims to promote the health of all Georgians by incorporating health equality into all of the state's public health policies and facilities, as well as the department's organizational culture. The DPH intends to do this by forming an internal health equity committee to formulate operational health equity plans, lead health equity initiatives, and establish a departmental action plan around health equity to capture and monitor health equity efforts. Additionally, the agency must ensure that departments, branches, and services use a full range of approaches to advance health equality, including community engagement, data collection and research, assessment, policy implementation, and workforce development and preparation for all employees health equity and inequalities.
References
Abercrombie, T. F. (2018). History of Public Health in Georgia . Georgia Department of Public Health.
Georgia Department of Public Health. (2019). Retrieved from https://georgia.gov/organization/georgia-department-public-health
Hadley, C. L., Feldman, L., & Toomey, K. E. (2015). Local public health cost study in Georgia. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice , 10 (5), 400-405.
