The Chief Nursing Officer for Public Health, located in the Commissioner's Office, provides nurse administration consultation and technical assistance to the Commissioner, executive staff, and state and local health departments including approximately 800 nurses and APRNs who practice in local health departments across the state. This guidance includes nursing scope of practice issues, the development and implementation of clinical protocols, nursing education and clinical competencies as well as public health nursing workforce development initiatives.
Ine Office of Population Health functionally operates through the Commissioner's Office. The Office seeks to eliminate health disparities in the state of Kentucky specifically those social, cultural, and environmental factors that contribute to adverse health outcomes. The Office serves in an advisory capacity to all divisions across the Department of Public Health, Local Health Departments, and other partners.
Quality improvement, performance management, and national accreditation efforts continue to be a focus of the department. The goal of this program is for participants to make fundamental changes in their organizations and practices so that they can improve the delivery of public health services and create a culture of continuous quality improvement. The ten (10) essential public health services and Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) are the driving forces to achieve minimum standards and measures for public health.
The Division of Administration and Financial Management provides all resource support to the department. This includes approximately 450 department-level personnel and more than 2,600 Local Health Department personnel represented by the 61 Kentucky LHDs in all 120 counties. The division provides all budget and accounting support, payments, grant allocation, fee collection, procurement, and contracting support. The division plays a vital role in providing effective and efficient training that enhances workforce abilities of the department, LHDs, public health preparedness, and other public health system partners. The division develops the department's biennial budget and oversees LHDs' fiscal planning and administrative management functions. The division works in concert with the other divisions in the department to plan, program, execute, manage, and report the financial activities of the department and LHDs.
The division is also responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the 61 LHDs. This responsibility includes conducting training on medical coding and billing practices, local health personnel procedures, and financial operations. Additionally, this division has the responsibilities for personnel management; medical records and forms management, reporting of clinical and community-based services, operating the online local health network that tracks more than three (3) million services to over 300,000 patients, policy interpretation, and the local Board of Health appointment process. The division is the primary liaison between the department and LHDs.
The budget includes an additional General Fund of $3,960,000 each year to retain the funding provided in the 2024-26 budget for the Public Health Transformation program. The 2024-26 budget included this funding from one-time money out of the Budget Reserve Trust Fund. This budget replaces the one-time money with recurring funds. The total amount for the program is $23,981,400.
Kentucky recently received a $212,905,600 award from the new Rural Health Transformation Fund established in H.R.1 that Congress passed in July 2025. This is expected to be the first year of five years of this award amount. Its purpose is to lessen the impacts of recent federal cuts to the Medicaid program and help support health care in Kentucky's rural communities. Kentucky's plan was developed in partnership with health partners across the state and will use the funding to help address the unique challenges rural Kentucky faces, including high rates of chronic conditions, maternity care deserts and gaps in coverage for oral care, emergency services and behavioral health.
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