Public Health System, Finance, and Quality Program

Public Health is defined as what we do collectively to assure conditions in which people can be healthy.¹ The Public Health System is the intricate network of organizations that work towards fulfillment of this mission. The Public Health System, Finance, and Quality (PHSFQ) Program serves as an organizational center to connect, through a synergistic network, federal agencies and system partners on public health system-level issues of shared interest and mutual benefit. Emphasis in the PHSFQ program is focused predominantly on system policies, analysis of financial sustainability, and quality improvement. The overarching goals of the program are to identify, advise, and focus national attention on high priority system-level issues and to assist in mainstreaming quality promoting concepts to assure a robust and financially sustainable public health system.

In 1988, the Institute of Medicine noted governmental public health as the organizational center of public health activities and further recognized the public health knowledge base as the nucleus of what the federal government should promote to ensure an effective system.¹  Critical to promoting the transfer, integration, and application of knowledge among system partners is the Office of Public Health and Science (OPHS). The PHSFQ program advances OPHS wide strategic goals² for:

• Promoting a systems approach to addressing problems
• Ensuring system-wide effectiveness
• Leveraging resources to strengthen science and knowledge especially when addressing the needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged populations
• Promoting leadership and coordination of public health research activities

^1. The Future of Public Health. Institute of Medicine. 1988.
^2. 2007 Performance Improvement Plan. Office of Public Health and Science.