771: ASTHO Peer Assessment Program, PanREMEDY Report Sheds Light on Recovery

JANSON SILVERS: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Wednesday, October 16, 2024. I'm Janson Silvers. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

KRISTIN SULLIVAN: 

This is the first assessment program for public health specifically focused on administrative and organizational capacity.

SILVERS: 

ASTHO's Kristin Sullivan tells us how ASTHO's Peer Assessment Program helps public health departments bolster organizational and administrative capacity.

SULLIVAN: 

This is a voluntary technical assistance opportunity for public health agencies where we deploy a trained team of peer reviewers from across the country to assess administrative and organizational capacity and provide recommendations for improvement.

SILVERS: 

ASTHO has defined 10 capacity areas that range from workforce development to human resources to procurement. Then ASTHO asks the agency to select a few to focus on.

SULLIVAN: 

We ask the agency to select up to three capacity areas for focus and then provide data and information on the related indicators. This is followed by a site visit where we conduct focus groups of agency staff and partners, culminating in a report of findings and recommendations to the agency.

SILVERS: 

The first to undergo the program was Texas.

SULLIVAN: 

They accessed an independent and objective resource that provided fresh perspective and valuable insights to their workforce modernization effort. With this resource, they were able to engage staff in meaningful discussions and gain a deeper understanding of challenges and opportunities, and the findings and recommendations are now supporting action on a new workforce strategy.

SILVERS: 

On tomorrow's newscast, you will hear directly from Texas leadership about how the program has benefited their agency. Follow the show and you'll have the episode on your mobile device at 5 a.m. Just tap the plus sign [+] in the upper right corner of the screen you're looking at right now.

The Pandemic Recovery Metrics to Drive Equity, or PanREMEDY Project, was created to assess the holistic recovery of individuals and communities hit hardest by COVID-19. Dr. Monica Schoch-Spana, who worked on the report, is from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and says they wanted to look at the holistic recovery, but with an equity lens.

MONICA SCHOCH-SPANA 

We know that pandemics are not equal opportunity events. There's not just one pandemic. There are multiple pandemics. There's holism. COVID-19 was not just a biological phenomenon. It was social, economic, and political shock.

SILVERS: 

Spana says we all want to know we have, quote, unquote, recovered. But how do we go about finding out if we've done it or not?

SCHOCH-SPANA 

The pandemic presented a chance for learning and systems improvement. So, the project said, 'Okay, using what measures could decision makers at state and local levels know that their efforts at holistic recovery were working?' Especially for those vulnerable individuals and communities hit hardest by COVID-19.

SILVERS: 

The 35-page report goes into extensive detail on how to assess recovery, but one way Schoch-Spana says we can look at recovery is by looking at outcomes.

SCHOCH-SPANA 

So, the outcomes include things like human health, human development, economic vitality, political integrity, the social fabric, and emotional well-being. And again, the report goes more into the granular aspects of each of those indicator sets.

SILVERS: 

The full PanREMEDY report is online now. Use the link in the show notes to read it.

Also today, ASTHO's upcoming webinar focuses on how to navigate the rulemaking process. ChangeLab Solutions and the Washington State Department of Health will be there with guidance. Plus, if you want to learn more about what the webinar has to offer, check out our interview with ASTHO's Andy Baker-White. We'll link that episode in the show notes.

Finally, this morning, the U.S. Postal Service and HHS have partnered to honor the healthcare community with a new commemorative Forever Stamp. A special dedication ceremony at the HHS Hubert H. Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C. was held to celebrate the occasion. Learn more about the Forever Stamp by clicking the link in the show notes.

That'll do it for today. We're back tomorrow morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Janson Silvers. You're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great day.