title: Enhancing Michigan's local public health accreditation program through participation in the multistate learning collaborative.
abstract: This article presents Michigan's efforts and accomplishments as a result of its involvement with the Multi-State Learning Collaborative (MLC) project. The article gives a brief overview of Michigan's accreditation program. It outlines the two goals and six objectives associated with Michigan's MLC project, and describes the structure it used to implement the project plan. It further explains and illustrates the outcomes achieved from successfully meeting the goals and objectives. The article gives a sample of a proposed voluntary component for continuous quality improvement that local health departments can implement utilizing the Shewhart Cycle of "Plan, Do, Check, and Act" and National Association of City and County Health Officials' Operational Definition of a Functional Health Department.
authors.affiliation: Central Michigan District Health Department, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, USA. mkushion@cmdhd.org
authors.forename: Mary L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Kushion
authors.forename: Debra Scamarcia
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Tews
authors.forename: Melody D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Parker
mesh_terms: D000068:Accreditation; D019985:Benchmarking / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D008824:Michigan; D011634:Public Health / Q000592:standards* / Q000639:trends; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*