School of Medicine and Health Sciences Poster Presentations

A Review of Social Mission Requirements Across Health Professions Education Accreditation Standards, 2017

Poster Number

231

Document Type

Poster

Status

Medical Student

Abstract Category

Education/Health Services

Keywords

health, education, accreditation, mission, requirements

Publication Date

Spring 2018

Abstract

Background: A number of new trends in health professions education have emerged over the last decade, including the idea of social mission at an institutional and accreditational level. Nevertheless, these ideas lie along a wide spectrum of implementation through written requirements.

Rationale: To identify trends in implementation of selected aspects of social mission across health professions education accrediting bodies. We hypothesized that explicit requirement for local community involvement, which is one of the more recently proposed aspects of social mission, is less explicitly addressed than the other aspects.

Methods: Data were analyzed from the latest editions of public-domain documents as of August 2017. There may be additional private-domain documents which were not included in this analysis.

  • MD programs: Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME)
  • DO programs: AOA Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (COCA)
  • DMD programs: Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA)
  • Baccalaureate Nursing programs, with scores averaged across the three bodies:
    • Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE)
    • Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN)
    • National League for Nursing Commission for Nursing Education Accreditation (CNEA)

Each of the four selected categories, listed below, was assessed by two main questions. Scoring was conducted on a scale of 0 to 2.

  • Cultural Competency
  • Service Learning
  • Local Community Involvement
  • Student Teamwork and Diversity

Results: With a maximum score of 16 per category, we observed overall scores of 7 for Cultural Competency, 5 2/3 for Service Learning, 2 for Local Community Involvement, and 9 1/3 for Student Teamwork and Diversity. There were also several implied standards among accreditation bodies for Cultural Competency, Service Learning, and Local Community Involvement.

Conclusions: Explicit accreditation requirements for institutional involvement in local communities lags far behind the rest of the selected aspects of social mission. In contrast, there is popular emphasis on requiring a certain degree of diversity within student bodies. Based on these findings, the absence of explicitly written requirements for institutional involvement in local communities warrants further study and discussion regarding what local community involvement means to an educational institution’s likelihood of inspiring social accountability in its future professionals.

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A Review of Social Mission Requirements Across Health Professions Education Accreditation Standards, 2017

Background: A number of new trends in health professions education have emerged over the last decade, including the idea of social mission at an institutional and accreditational level. Nevertheless, these ideas lie along a wide spectrum of implementation through written requirements.

Rationale: To identify trends in implementation of selected aspects of social mission across health professions education accrediting bodies. We hypothesized that explicit requirement for local community involvement, which is one of the more recently proposed aspects of social mission, is less explicitly addressed than the other aspects.

Methods: Data were analyzed from the latest editions of public-domain documents as of August 2017. There may be additional private-domain documents which were not included in this analysis.

  • MD programs: Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME)
  • DO programs: AOA Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (COCA)
  • DMD programs: Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA)
  • Baccalaureate Nursing programs, with scores averaged across the three bodies:
    • Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE)
    • Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN)
    • National League for Nursing Commission for Nursing Education Accreditation (CNEA)

Each of the four selected categories, listed below, was assessed by two main questions. Scoring was conducted on a scale of 0 to 2.

  • Cultural Competency
  • Service Learning
  • Local Community Involvement
  • Student Teamwork and Diversity

Results: With a maximum score of 16 per category, we observed overall scores of 7 for Cultural Competency, 5 2/3 for Service Learning, 2 for Local Community Involvement, and 9 1/3 for Student Teamwork and Diversity. There were also several implied standards among accreditation bodies for Cultural Competency, Service Learning, and Local Community Involvement.

Conclusions: Explicit accreditation requirements for institutional involvement in local communities lags far behind the rest of the selected aspects of social mission. In contrast, there is popular emphasis on requiring a certain degree of diversity within student bodies. Based on these findings, the absence of explicitly written requirements for institutional involvement in local communities warrants further study and discussion regarding what local community involvement means to an educational institution’s likelihood of inspiring social accountability in its future professionals.