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BOH RESOLUTION #2018-29 AUTHORIZATION TO SIGN A MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING WITH PUBLIC HEALTH ACTIVITIES AND SERVICES TRACKING PROJECT FOR ADVANCING THE ADOPTION AND USE OF A UNIFORM CHART OF ACCOUNTS CROSSWALK
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The Public Health Activities and Services Tracking (PHAST) project is housed at the University of Washington and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, with the goal of making dependable, comparable data available to the more than 2,800 state and local public health departments across the United States. With standard information, these public health departments are better enabled to make data-driven decisions that help to create healthier communities.
As it relates to financial data, currently the 2,800 state and local health departments across the country use almost 2,800 unique accounting systems, meaning there is no mechanism for public health leaders to compare finances to determine why public health services vary in cost across departments or which investments are most worthwhile. The PHAST Uniform Chart of Accounts (UCOA) project is designed to solve this challenge by providing a standardized format for tracking local public health revenue and expenditures.
Public Health-Madison and Dane County (PHMDC) proposes entering into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to join the UCOA project in its second cohort as a practice partner. PHMDC would participate by cross-walking PHMDC’s chart of accounts to the uniform chart of accounts proposed by the project, and will have access to an online database and interactive visualizations depicting detailed financial information from all participating local health departments. There is no exchange of funds in the scope of this MOU.
This collaboration benefits PHMDC by providing benchmarking data for budget allocation analysis to ensure programs are adequately resourced. It will also enable PHMDC to analyze revenue sources, respond to external reporting requests, develop meaningful performanc...
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