Health department applies for accreditation Thursday

By Nick Tabor, New Era Senior Staff Writer

The Christian County Health Department applied for accreditation on Thursday afternoon — six months ahead of its deadline.

The next step is to get a national inspector here to spend a week conducting interviews and watching procedures. If the health department passes every test, it could get the accreditation before the end of the year.

Department Director Mark Pyle surprised his staff and board members with the news on Thursday. He invited Mike Cayce, director of the county’s board of health, to click the “submit” button on the website of the Public Health Accreditation Board. Watching it on a projector, the staff cheered and clapped.

Pyle: Board of health must shift focus to community health

By Nick Tabor, New Era Senior Staff Writer

The Christian County Board of Health needs to spend less time on the health department’s budget and more time addressing big questions of community health, said Health Department Director Mark Pyle.

Pyle announced this opinion in a presentation Monday night that closed the board’s quarterly meeting.

For the board members, this will mean informing themselves better about the community’s health needs beyond the department’s doors, he said. He plans to discuss this in more specific terms at the next meeting Nov. 19.

“How many of you, when you signed up for the board of health, thought that the only thing that you would do when you came to a board meeting would be talk about money?” he asked the board. No hands went up. “If you haven’t noticed, the past four years, we haven’t talked about a lot of health issues. That’s going to change.”