In 2011, the Alexandria Health Department (AHD), in recognition of the excellence of their Aquatic Health Program, was honored as the winner of APSP’s Dr. Neil Lowry Memorial Award. The key components of this highly successful program include:
- ¨ Program assessment
- ¨ Recruitment of excellent program leadership and staff
- ¨ A totally fee-supported program that enabled increased
o Staffing
o Equipment
o Outreach
- ¨ Use of seasonal EH staff positions to reduce the unit cost of pool evaluations (inspections)
- ¨ Frequent evaluations
o Every two weeks for seasonal pools
o Monthly for year-round pools
- ¨ Development of a risk-weighted measure of operational performance of pools and pool management companies (PMCs)
o 2008 - Began sharing data on PMC performance with all stakeholders
o 2010 – Began sharing annual rating data on operational performance of individual pools with pool owners
- ¨ Development of a new Aquatic Health Ordinance with stakeholder input
o Reflected most recent technology and environmental health science
o Required licensing of PMCs
o Enforcement mechanism for PMCs that repeatedly and flagrantly violate ordinance
o Adopted with no local industry opposition in March, 2010
- ¨ Outreach to stakeholders
o Web site information
o E-mails when tickets issued
o End of season deficiency letters
o Web posting of AHD evaluation reports
o Newsletter – published 3x per summer
o Semi-annual town hall-style meetings
o Awards for excellent performance by PMCs
As a result of these improvements:
- ¨ Consistency in the timeliness and quality of evaluations improved greatly
- ¨ Over a two year period:
o Health & safety violations per evaluation were reduced by 71%
o Ticketed violations were reduced by 59%
- ¨ Relations with pool owners and PMCs improved dramatically
- ¨ The best PMCs began using AHD’s data on their performance to market their companies
- ¨ Pool owners began choosing a PMC based on price AND performance, not just price
- ¨ Program became immune from budget cuts because it is self-supporting
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