Communiqué from CAAHEP

Communiqué October 2009

News from the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs

In This Issue

Spotlight on CAAHEP

CoARC's Early Departure

CAAHEP Summer Workshop Wrap Up

Calendar of Events

Message from the President

AMA on Health Care Workforce Trends

Accreditation Actions

CAAHEP in the Spotlight

The American Society of Association Executives has created a new website at www.thepowerofa.org to help educate Congress and the public about the valuable services provided by nonprofit associations. CAAHEP's Spotlight on Accreditation Video, which ran on public television networks nationwide, was selected as a video that fits right in with ASAE's theme of how associations are serving the public in these economic tough times.Please visit the website and look for CAAHEP's video under the August 19th entry.

CoARC's Early Departure
The Committee on Accreditation for Respiratory Care (CoARC) has announced its separation from CAAHEP effective November 11, 2009. Until the November 11, 2009, departure date all respiratory programs currently accredited by CAAHEP will remain CAAHEP accredited. The transition of accreditation from CAAHEP to CoARC will be seamless. All respiratory care programs accredited by CAAHEP on November 11th will be accredited by CoARC on November 12th. Any changes to Standards, policies or processes will be the responsibility of CoARC and will not take effect until after November 11th. Please contact the CoARC office should you have any questions at 817-283-2895.

A Day of Best Practices and Tools for CoAs

This past July, CAAHEP's Summer Workshop in Arlington, Virginia, provided representatives from the Committees on Accreditation with useful tools and helpful best practices that were applicable to all professions accredited by CAAHEP.

The Summer Workshop debuted two online tools: Your Accreditation mentor (YAM) the program director's accreditation survival guide, and GoToWebinar, the internet seminar and meeting tool CAAHEP is making available for CoAs' use. Attendees were excited about these new programs, and several CoAs signed up to try the GoToWebinar service on the spot!

During the day-long event, several CoA volunteers, along with Board Members and staff lead interactive discussions on several different best practices, including:

-Teaching Professionalism to Students, a challenge to all programs these days;

-Improving Response Rates on Surveys, providing ideas on how to get surveys returned from former students and their employers;

-Nuts and Bolts of Policies within the CoAs, discussing document retention policies, confidentiality, and leadership progression within the CoAs;

-Relationships Between CoAs and Sponsoring Organizations, a comparison of how different CoAs appoint representatives;

-Complaint Policies, Adverse Recommendations and Appeals in an Age of Litigation, a review of complaints received by CAAHEP, and recent litigation and appeals;

-And, Growing Pains: Too Much or Too Little...It All Hurts, an in depth discussion on how to deal with rapid growth or too few or diminishing programs.

The discussions at each session were lively and insightful, and the networking between programs and during dinner was beneficial to all who attended.

In an effort to reach the CoA members who were unable to attend, CAAHEP has provided the presentation material for each of the sessions on the Accreditation Services Hub.

Calendar of Events

Greetings!

The CAAHEP Communiqué has a new look! Delivered directly to your in-box, the Communiqué is now easily accessible and paper free. The table of contents for each issue includes direct links to the articles listed, so just click and read. We hope that you enjoy the new format and we welcome your feedback. Please let us know what you think via email.

Kathleen Megivern
Executive Director

Message from the President

M. LaCheeta McPherson, PhD, MT(ASCP), CLS(NCA)

The fall is a time of change: a change in weather and seasons, a change in sports and of course a change in schools with new student enrollments. The same is true with CAAHEP. One obvious change is my role as the new President of CAAHEP's Board of Directors. I look forward to my tenure and the challenges ahead.

Since the summer we have had some membership changes on the CAAHEP Board of Directors. We welcome Jinny Gender, as our newest Public Member and Kalyani Naik, representing Cytotechnology. Dr. Hugh Bonner was elected Vice President of the Board. The Board also has selected a new Recent Graduate Commissioner: Mr. Christopher Douglas. Christopher is a fire fighter from Okeechobee, Florida and is a recent graduate of an Emergency Medical Services Professional Paramedic program.

Other changes that have recently occurred include a name change for the CoA representing the surgical technologists and surgical assistants. Effective August 1st, this CoA's name changed to The Accreditation Review Council on Education for Surgical Technology and Surgical Assisting (ARC/STSA). Other CoA changes include Mr. Bill Goding as the new Executive Director for the CoA for Polysomnography and Dr. Joan Meeks as Chair of the new Lactation Consultants CoA. Lastly the Accreditation Review Committee for the Anesthesiologist Assistant has updated their Standards which were approved by the Board in July.

CAAHEP is going 'greener' by distributing their communications electronically. We hope this format will be well received and be seen as a convenience to everyone. Additionally, through the use of "Go to Meeting and Go to Webinar" access, CAAHEP can assist CoA's by providing a cost-effective meeting platform for little to no cost to the Committees on Accreditation.

In September CAAHEP sponsored a well-received Generalist Site Visitor Training Workshop in New Orleans. CAAHEP is providing trained generalist site visitors in an attempt to serve CoAs that need assistance in finding qualified site visitors. Your Accreditation Mentor (YAM) will soon be available on the CAAHEP website for new program directors. If you get the opportunity, check it out. I hope you find it informative.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention a significant change in the accreditation for Respiratory Care. Effective November 12, 2009, CAAHEP will no longer be the accrediting body for Respiratory Care. I encourage program directors to contact CoARC if you have questions regarding the transition.

Finally, I wish you all a great start to another academic year. Know that I, the CAAHEP staff and Board of Directors work hard to make your accreditation processes as easy as possible.

AMA Webinar on Health Care Workforce Trends Answers Many Questions, Raises Others

by Fred Donini-Lenhoff, Director, Medical Education Products
American Medical Association

A September 9 Webinar on current, emerging, and future trends in health care workforce garnered significant interest and participation among the allied health community, with more than 110 sites and nearly 200 individuals participating.

Sponsored by the American Medical Association (AMA), the event featured three speakers:

Lynn Brooks, health care workforce consultant
Mary Anne Kelly, Vice President, Metropolitan Chicago Hospital Council
Sheryl R. McLain, MS, Executive Director, Oklahoma Health Care Workforce Center

To start, Lynn Brooks took a global look at some of the current health care workforce projections and needs, and the current trends (including the economy) that may affect them. Next, Mary Anne Kelly discussed an innovative public/private partnership in Illinois; then Sheryl McLain described her work in bringing together a wide range of groups to address health workforce shortages in Oklahoma.

Participants in the event had a number of interesting questions, including the following:

Mentoring, etc., takes time which can often conflict with productivity standards set for clinician performance. What strategies have you implemented to make mentoring a reality within clinical practice?
How do you engage your workforce investment boards?
With a competitive health care industry, how were you able to get hospitals to share information on employment needs?
Where do you see health information technology in workforce demand?
What do you think is the major driver behind the closure of more clinical laboratory science programs over the last two years or so?
How did you put your state group together, and how difficult was it to get everyone on the same page and away from their "hidden agendas" and the "silos" of their special interests?
How important do you think it is to concentrate promotion of the health care careers at the middle and high school level? Do you believe students are deciding a career path at the younger ages or just exploring an interest in health care careers in general?
From an undergraduate institution's perspective, what advice would you give to the qualified applicant who is not accepted to a health care program?
What about importing of health professionals from other countries (similar to nurses coming from the Philippines)?

Some of these questions will be addressed in future issues of the AMA's Health Care Careers e-Letter (available at http://www.ama-assn.org/go/hpe-letter).

If you missed the Webinar, don't despair! An archive version is available for purchase at www.ama-assn.org/go/webinars (click on "Health care careers [HCC] Webinars).

Accreditation Actions