Office of Policy and Accountability (OPA)
The Office of Policy and Accountability (OPA) coordinates agency-wide best practices that are for the betterment of the department and the services it provides. OPA primarily connects to the NMDOH goal to pursue organizational excellence, which it achieves by taking on the important miscellaneous departmental activities that no other division has the mandate to do.
OPA continually promotes and incorporates divisional ownership and participation in things such as:
Planning and Assessment
The consistent application of key components provides a blueprint for a nationally recognized and accredited health department. The interlocking planning, assessment and operational components provide standards and measures that ensure a health department’s ability to deliver the ten essential public health services and sets the context for organizational excellence.
Public Health Accreditation
Accreditation provides a framework for a health department to identify performance improvement opportunities, to improve management, develop leadership, and improve relationships with the community.
Quality Improvement
Quality improvement is the use of deliberate and defined improvement processes, such as Plan-DO-Check-Act, that promote continuous and ongoing efforts to achieve measurable improvements in efficiency, effectiveness, performance, accountability, and outcomes.
Performance Management System
The Performance Management System (PMS) monitors and shows progress toward expected, targeted, programmatic outcomes. The NMDOH system ties to a statewide Performance-Based Budgeting requirement as well as establishes an agency-wide design that has its foundation in a commitment to excellence.
Workforce Development
Workforce development helps create, sustain, and retain a viable and competent public health workforce.
Health Equity
The Office of Health Equity strives to provide equitable health opportunities by building relationships with communities, establishing collaborations with care providers and forging partnerships with stakeholders to provide quality services in a culturally and linguistically appropriate manner.
OPA’s 25-Year Vision: Transformation
In 2045, OPA serves as a model of systemic change that has transformed the New Mexico Department of Health by:
- Promoting health equity
- Driving a culture of quality
- Ensuring a competent workforce
- Obtaining organizational excellence
Vision for the Plan (2021—2023): Focus
By the year 2024, OPA will have:
- Defined the vision for health equity across the Department of Health. OPA serves as the convenor and elevates conversations around building a more equitable New Mexico.
- Broadened its reach and influence through its supportive role in training, quality improvement, performance management, workforce development, and accreditation.
- Communicated its story—and the impacts it has on the work of the Department of Health — through outreach, communications, and policy.
- Moved toward sustainability by facilitating alignment of institutional knowledge and infrastructure supports.
Strategic Imperatives
Strategic imperatives are those items that are so foundational to the plan and achieving OPA’s vision, that they serve as the basis for the planning cycle and are woven throughout the goals and all the objectives.
Strategic Plan Goals
Building on its strengths and core competencies, over the next three years, OPA will focus on five goals:
News Articles
Latest
- New Mexico Department of Health Receives National Accreditation (November 16, 2015)
Publications
Featured
- Strategic Plan FY21-23 (Plan)
- Strategic Plan FY17-FY19 (Plan)
- State of Health in New Mexico 2018 (Report)
Latest
- State Health Improvement Plan 2024-2026 (Plan)
- State of Health in New Mexico 2024 (Report)
- Strategic Plan FY25-27 (Plan)
Popular
- State Health Assessment 2014-2016 (PHA Application) (Report)
- Strategic Plan FY21-23 (Plan)
- Strategic Plan FY14-FY16 (Plan)
Resources
Featured
Latest
- Reaping the Benefits of Accreditation Across the Nation
- Results Scorecard Annual FY18
- Results Scorecard Quarterly FY19-Q1