Staff Contact: Lisa Collard, lisa@coaemsp.org

Two tools to be used by Paramedic programs to assess whether resources supporting educational activities are adequate include the 1) Program Resource Survey--Student, and 2) the Program Resource Survey--Program Personnel. These surveys are to be completed and analyzed annually; when the summary data for any of the ten general categories is below 80%, an action plan is required. 

The Personnel surveys must be completed by the program staff, Program Medical Director, and the Advisory Committee members. These surveys were revised in 2017 to convert from a five-point scale to a three-point approach: yes, no, or N/A.

The data analysis is most easily accomplished using the Resource Assessment Matrix (RAM) and Program Resource Survey (PRS) Data Collection Excel spreadsheet available here . This tool includes four worksheets: Instructions, PRS Students, PRS Personnel, and RAM. Data from the individual surveys is entered into the appropriate cells and automatically calculates the totals and averages for each of the categories. If the category percentage of ‘yes’ responses is less than 80%, the Program identifies the results and analysis in Column E and completes an analysis detailed action plan to address the issue in Column F. 

When results are above 80%, ‘results met threshold” can be indicated in Column E, and ‘continue to monitor’ in Column F.

The questions in the two surveys are slightly different (by necessity), therefore the results for the categories can be different. As a result, a further refinement to the RAM document was recently added.  The cells in columns C, D, E, and F have been divided and require a response for both the program personnel and the student results. This revised format should make it easier to identify and enter the required information.

Staff Contact: Lynn Caruthers, lynn@coaemsp.org

During the last Quality Improvement Subcommittee meeting in August, along with reviewing the comments from the programs participating in the Annual Report Pilot Project, the committee also reviewed the currently posted Graduate and Employer Surveys. In addition to the three primary questions regarding competency in the three domains, one additional question was added to each respective survey asking the participant about their satisfaction with the educational preparation they received either as a graduate or related to their employee. 

The updated Word version of these two surveys, the Graduate Survey and the Employer Survey are on our website here. They are also available in SurveyMonkey format. If a program would like a copy of the SurveyMonkey format, please email Lynn Caruthers at lynn@coaemsp.org with your request and provide your account username; Lynn will be happy to transfer a copy of each survey to your account. The program must have a paid SurveyMonkey account to be eligible for the surveys to be transferred.

Please start using the updated version of the Graduate and Employer surveys with all cohorts graduating in September 2018 or after.

Remember, these surveys should not be sent out any earlier than six months after graduation and no later than twelve-months after graduation.

reprinted with permission from the CAAHEP October 2018 Communiqué

by Kathleen Megivern, JD, CAAHEP Executive Vice President

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) is the non-governmental body that “accredits the accreditors.” CAAHEP has been recognized by CHEA since the very beginning of both organizations. We are deeply committed to the principle of “third party recognition.” So, it was deeply distressing when we received a letter from CHEA in March that threatened us with the loss of that recognition if we failed to fully meet the CHEA criteria by October 1st.

CHEA has become very focused on transparency issues (as has the US Department of Education and others involved in accreditation). So, there were two areas in their criteria where they found CAAHEP to be deficient. The first had to do with the requirement that all accredited programs must post on their website the results of at least one student learning outcome (graduation, job placement, certification or licensure pass rates). Our Committees on Accreditation knew this requirement was coming and they all adopted policies about what should be posted. But progress in getting those links was very slow and, basically, CHEA ran out of patience! So CAAHEP staff, along with several of our CoAs worked all summer to compile the URLs for student learning outcomes. We were able to submit a spreadsheet on October 1st that contained links for all but 7 of our programs with continuing accreditation. We even had several Initial programs that were able to supply links. In total, we submitted 1,920 URLs. But the job is not done as we learned when we began reviewing links that were fine a few months ago but were now broken. We need the cooperation of every accredited program to make sure you have a working link posted and to let us know if the URL changes (contact katie@caahep.org).

The second area of transparency has to do with publishing for all the world to see, the bases for accreditation decisions. While we had been doing that for adverse decisions, we needed to also include the information for awards of accreditation. That means that all citations (Standards not met) needed to be published every time the Board of Directors takes an accreditation action. In order to do that, we first had to amend our confidentiality policy because previously the content of award letters was considered confidential. We have now added the following statement to our confidentiality policy:

“In order to comply with the need for public disclosure, CAAHEP will publish the Standards citations that appear in accreditation award letters.”

So, after every CAAHEP Board of Directors meeting you can find a report on the CAAHEP website that discloses every action, the bases for those actions, whether and when progress reports are due and when the next comprehensive evaluation will take place.

CHEA has revised its criteria and it’s clear that in the future the issues of transparency and student learning outcomes will be even more “front and center.” Once the new criteria are finalized we will be reporting on the changes to come.

May 29-June 2, 2019 / The New Omni Hotel / Louisville, Kentucky

ACCREDITCON is designed to be the definitive resource for CoAEMSP constituents on the accreditation process. Who should attend?

PROGRAM DIRECTORS --because YOU lead the program

LEAD INSTRUCTORS --because YOU help deliver the content to students

CLINICAL COORDINATORS --because YOU ensure clinical and capstone field internship success

MEDICAL DIRECTORS --because YOU are the medical authority

CoAEMSP SPONSOR ORGANIZATIONS --because YOU contribute to the success of the CoAEMSP

OTHER COMMITTEES ON ACCREDITATION --because YOU contribute to the success of CAAHEP

STATE EMS OFFICIALS --because YOU approve and regulate the program

COLLEGE DEANS OR PROVOSTS --because YOU provide direct oversight of the educational program

Visit the ACCREDITCON website to learn more and REGISTER!

#ACCREDITCON

The Committee on Accreditation of Educational Programs for the Emergency Medical Services (CoAEMSP) is pleased to be celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2018.

Be sure to visit the history page in the 40th anniversary section of our website.

We invite you to send a message that can be shared with the EMS community on our website, in our monthly newsletters, or in other possible methods of communications.

In addition, if you have photos from the past 40 years that relate to the history of the CoAEMSP and accreditation, we encourage you to send them to Jennifer Anderson Warwick at jennifer@coaemsp.org .