This transcript is auto-generated and may contain inaccuracies.

Lisa Soto Torres:
Hello. My name is Lisa Soto Torres, and I am the Public Health Accreditation Coordinator for the Puerto Rico Department of Health PRDOH, in short. It is an honor to share with you our experience pursuing the Public Health Accreditation. This has been a long-standing goal for the PRDOH, and since 2022, we have been working on achieving it with the understanding that fabs standards and measures provide a blueprint to operationalize a path towards organizational transformation. We envision accreditation as an endeavor that is agency-wide, and as such, it needs to be shared by all. Today, I will briefly share three strategies that have been successful for us, if not without their challenges.

First, we design a project structure that fosters this shared notion by having three critical teams to advance the accreditation process interdependently. The second strategy has focused on ensuring engagement with all levels of the organization, for example, through the steering committee, leadership, and middle management are directly involved in the accreditation process, while subject matter experts are an active part through the domain teams. In addition, an ongoing communication strategy ensures all the workforce is aware of accreditation efforts.

Our third strategy has been to focus both on working to achieve the initial application process, while also focusing on the long term, on capacity building to strengthen the department’s public health foundational capabilities. Since submitting our formal application in January of 2024, we have been working with domain teams to advance the documentation process through coaching and tailored support. As of July 31, 2025, 92% of the total required documentation has been identified. We will be submitting via eFab by the end of the year, and will conduct a mock site visit and the official site visit by early to mid-2026. Simultaneously, we are working with key units such as Communications, Human Resources, and IT to identify gaps and improvement needs for foundational capabilities to ensure we build a sustainable infrastructure for re-accreditation and organizational transformation. Our accreditation journey has had its challenges, and we have approached it with a reflexive lens to maximize lessons learned. We highlight some strategies in the poster that have been instrumental in our ability to move forward and to lay the foundation for accreditation sustainability. We continue to learn and grow as we implement this effort, and are hopeful to become the first territory to achieve accreditation.

Thank you for your attention.