New Phila Health Department achieves national accreditation
NEW PHILADELPHIA (WJER) (March 25, 2024) – City Health Commissioner Vickie Ionno and her staff have been celebrating a big achievement.
After submitting hundreds of documents and undergoing a rigorous assessment process, the New Philadelphia Health Department is now nationally accredited.
“I could not be more proud. Proud of our health department. Proud of our staff. It was quite the undertaking… As our director says at the Ohio Department of Health, ‘It’s a heavy lift.’”
The agency is among 90 in Ohio and 450 across the U.S. to achieve the designation through the National Public Health Accreditation Board. Ionno says it’s something they had been working toward for about five years and proof that the health department is meeting the same standards as larger organizations.
“We’re just going to celebrate this week. We’re allowed to brand it now that we’re PHAB accredited. It gives us, I think, more credibility as far as the way it looks on paper but we feel like we’ve always had a great health department.”
Ionno, Mayor Joel Day, and other New Philadelphia officials successfully lobbied to exempt accredited small-town health departments and those going through the process from a state law that would have forced them to merge with their counties’ general health districts.