The number one cited CAAHEP Standard is IV.A.1. Student Evaluation - Frequency and Purpose. To provide program directors and faculty an opportunity to learn more about written exam item analysis and the CoAEMSP's requirements, a free webinar will be offered June 30 at 1 p.m. Central. The webinar will discuss item analysis of written exams including difficulty level and discrimination index or RPBI. Specific requirements of the CoAEMSP will be discussed as well as examples of item analysis and what the numbers mean.

Upon completion of this webinar the participant will: 1) Identify the CoAEMSP requirements for item analysis for major exams; 2) Describe the 2 components of item analysis; and 3) Discuss the use of difficulty level and discrimination index or RPBI to evaluate items on an exam.

Join Debra Cason, Patricia Tritt, Mike Miller and Gordy Kokx as they co-facilitate an interactive session that makes written exam item analysis understandable! Ms. Cason, Ms. Tritt and Dr. Miller are experienced program directors, seasoned site visitors, and current CoAEMSP Board members; Mr. Kokx is a previous program director, CoAEMSP Board member, and currently Assistant Director of Accreditation Services for the CoAEMSP.

On May 15, the CAAHEP Board of Directors acted on its Standards Committee's recommendation to approve the proposed 2015 CAAHEP Standards and Guidelines for the EMS Professions. Implementation details will be coming soon!

The CoAEMSP Quality Improvement Committee recently reviewed the analysis of the outcomes data from the 2014 CAAAHEP/CoAEMSP Annual Reports.  As a review, the following minimum thresholds are identified:

In the past, the outcomes data were reviewed, but actions were not required by programs when a threshold was not met.  However, beginning with the 2012 annual reports, covering the 2009 - 2011 graduate reporting period, programs that did not meet the threshold for Written National or State Credentialing Examinations were required to submit a detailed analysis and action plan in a Standardized Progress Report (SPR) format.  Outcomes data are analyzed based on a three-year rolling average.  Since Annual Reports are due in December each year and some programs do not have complete data for that previous 12 months, the 3-year "review window" always omits the calendar year of the report submission.

Read complete article

Programs received an invoice for Annual Accreditation Fees in the amount of $1,400 during the week of May 4. This invoice came from Ruth Crump (ruth@coaemsp.org).

If you have not received an invoice, first, check your Spam folder to see if the invoice ended up there; if not, notify Ruth: ruth@coaemsp.org, so that she can email it to you immediately.

The due date for the invoice is July 1. This applies to ALL programs that either hold accreditation, the Letter of Review, or are working toward the LoR.

To avoid additional processing fees, payment is due on or before July 31.  

NOTE: An Additional Processing Fee invoice of $500 will be sent the first week in August for past due Annual Accreditation Fees. The increase in Additional Processing Fees is noted on the Fees page of our website.

If your program requires that a Purchase Order appear on the invoice, email this request immediately to ruth@coaemsp.org.

Do you have a progress report due June 1? Have you recently hosted a site visit and have a response to the site visit findings due June 1? Be sure to submit it as a single PDF document to Karen (karen@coaemsp.org) on or before June 1 to prevent a recommendation for probation or a withhold of accreditation.

The CoAEMSP staff is charged with reviewing the accreditation records of 70 programs. That means the documentation you have submitted for ONE program is multiplied by 70 for the staff! The staff person receiving the 70 programs' submissions must collate it for dissemination to the Board. This is a huge task, and we need to be sure we are as efficient and accurate as possible.

To ensure ALL of the documentation is received and reviewed, programs MUST:

Failure to submit the document as a single PDF document or eliminate all links and embedded files will delay the review of the program's accreditation record.

The CoAEMSP Board has found it necessary to take a hard stance on reports submitted after the deadline, in multiple files, or in the wrong format. When reports or responses are not submitted according to the above requirements, they will be considered as "not received" and the Board will NOT review the material.

Click HERE for tips on HOW to create a single PDF.