20 Lone Tree Voice
September 16, 2021
HEALTH
of the local board of health and as the head of the department. The board of health can FROM PAGE 1 choose among physicians, county’s public health advi- physician assistants, public health nurses or other sory committee. The commissioners made qualified public health professionals to act in the role. those appointments official Whomever is chosen must at their Sept. 14 meeting. have at least five of the Douglas County compast 10 years “of successful missioners voted Sept. 7 to and responsible adminisofficially form their own trative experience in public health department Sept. health or a closely related 7 after more than a year field, including at least of considering the action two years experience in amid county leaders’ longsupervising public health standing objections to Triprofessionals,” according County Health’s COVIDto the statute. safety rules, including If the director is a physimask-wearing mandates. cian — an M.D. or a D.O. Commissioners signaled — they must have attended in July 2020 that they planned to end their nearly a certified medical school and must be licensed to 55-year relationship with practice medicine in the Tri-County, then put that state of Colorado. plan on hold in NovemIf the board of health ber 2020 when the agency chooses someone other agreed to let the county opt than a physician as the out of public health orders director, they must also such as mask mandates choose at least one physiand other COVID-related cian to advise the public restrictions. health director on medical The county renewed the decisions, according to the plan to leave when Tristatute. A non-physician County’s Board of Health director must have a voted Aug. 30 to no longer master’s degree in a public allow counties to opt out of health field. public health orders and In the Sept. 7 work sesimposed an indoor mask sion, Douglas County staff mandate for all students presented this information and staff at schools. to the commissioners. Tri-County previously In response to a question served Adams, Arapahoe from Commissioner Abe and Douglas counties. Laydon about the selection After Douglas County anprocess, County Attorney nounced its intent to form Lance Ingalls clarified its own health department, that unless the commisAdams and Arapahoe said sioners themselves were they were also considering on a board of health, they splitting. “wouldn’t have any say” in Requirements for new director who is chosen as the public health director. Later in Colorado’s Public Health that meeting, commissionAct of 2008 provides speers selected their board of cific guidelines for local health members, including health departments, which Teal and Thomas. each county is required by “I’m actually comforted law to have through either by the statutory requirea county-specific departments for the director of ment or an agency representing multiple areas, like the board of health because I feel that makes a bunch of Tri-County. our jobs really easy,” Teal One section of the law is said in the meeting. dedicated to the selection irst ations oundation The director for Triof a public health director, Come soar with us County, the agency that who serves at the pleasure
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Invites you to attend the 8 Annual Denver American Indian Festival th
Douglas County Commissioner Lora Thomas, seen at an Aug. 19 commissioners’ meeting, was named PHOTO BY JESSICA GIBBS Sept. 7 as a member of the county’s new Board of Health.
previously held jurisdiction over Douglas County, is Dr. John Douglas. Other stipulations for new agency The state public health act also stipulates the required services of a public health agency. Any health department is required to “develop and promote the public policies needed to secure the conditions necessary for a healthy community,” according to the county staff presentation paraphrasing the statute. That includes enforcing the laws of the state health board, investigating and controlling communicable diseases such as COVID-19, requiring quarantines and the closures of schools and public places when necessary and making health investigations and inspections, according to the county staff presentation. The department also must have available laboratories to conduct investigations and must collect, compile and tabulate marriage, birth, death and morbidity records. In general, public health departments deal with the whole population’s health, as opposed to focusing on individual patients like a primary care physician
Saturday & Sunday September 25 & 2 26 10 am N toations 6 pmFoundation First Come soar with us Riverdale Regional Park Adams County Fairgrounds th Invites you toto attend thethe 8th 8Annual Invites you attend Annual 9755 Henderson Road Denver American Indian Festival Brighton, American Colorado Denver Indian Festival
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would. The county health department is also required to provide administrative services such as communications, human resources, legal services and emergency preparedness. “I think consistent with everything that Douglas County does, we not only want to meet this high threshold of statutory requirements but exceed it,” Laydon said in the meeting. “And make sure that every individual appointed to this public health board and that is providing services is of the highest caliber and of the highest pedigree in terms of expertise, experience and qualifications.” Paying for a department The new board of health will also be required to present a health department budget to the full board of county commissioners. The county has not yet determined how the new health department will provide all of the required services to residents but it could be some combination of county-level services, contracted services with an entity such as Tri-County and other community partnerships. County staff is also exploring how the county’s
already-existing mental health initiative could take on some of the services of a public health agency, said Drake, the deputy county manager. As far as costs go, Drake said the county is still “trying to figure that out” as it looks at what state and federal dollars could help fund the department. One thing that makes that a challenge is different budget cycles for those entities, the county and Tri-County. “An awful lot of public health funding is state funded or federally funded. What that means is you can have a county budget that includes all that state and federal funding as your budget, but that does not mean that the county is putting in that much money,” Drake said. “There’s no reason to think that we wouldn’t be eligible for that, what we have to figure out and sort out is the timing for those different sources of funds.” While the county has paid for Tri-County services until the end of the year, Drake and her team are in talks with the agency about how to continue at least some of those services beyond 2021. “We are very earnest SEE HEALTH, P31
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