Revitalization of The Dehs Assessment Program

Project Summary for Colorado's Retail Food Program Proposal to Revitalize the Assessment Programin harmony with Standard 9, Program Assessment of the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program StandardsIt is the intent of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's Divisionof Environmental Health and Sustainability to use this opportunity to revitalize theassessment program to be in harmony with Standard 9, Program Assessment, create asustainable program that will result in local retail food programs being trained in thestandards and assessment program, and conduct assessments of over thirty local retailfood programs throughout the state. Our goal is to ensure that Division staff workingwithin the assessment program is well trained, knowledgeable and will consistently anduniformly apply that knowledge to the future assessments to be conducted with localregulatory programs.To date we have used the Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory ProgramStandards (VNRFRPS) as the standard to evaluate the various aspects of our programand have identified gaps with the standards that have not been met. We are movingforward with formulating an action plan to address these gaps and strengthen andimprove our program. Establishing a solid program foundation will help improve theprogram now, provide guidance for the future, and promote a program that will be amodel for other Colorado local retail food inspection programs.The goal is to have the work conducted by all of Colorado's retail food inspectionprograms be recognized for their quality and consistency related to inspections, soundprogram practices, and targeted efforts in reducing the occurrence of foodborne illnessrisk factors. This will assist the state in meeting its Winnable Battle of Safe Food gearedat providing safe food to Colorado residents and guests. The agency is committed tohelp achieve FDA's goal of an integrated food safety system and ensure that Colorado'sinspections, investigations, assessments and program initiatives are recognized asmodel programs nationwide.