Joint Accreditation Changes the Planning Question

A CE office considering joint accreditation needs to explain what the change would make possible for its learners. A simpler application process is useful, but it leaves an educational question: what do members of the healthcare team need to learn together?

The Alliance Podcast's September 17 discussion of scaling a CE program brings both questions into view. One program's account describes a single application process and self-study, alongside expanded programming. Administrative work became more streamlined; that did not mean the office could assume it would need fewer staff. This is an institutional experience, not a comparative estimate of cost or workload.

For a CME leader preparing an accreditation decision, separate three possible aims: sharing administrative services, making appropriate credit available to more learners, and developing interprofessional education. They may support one another, but each needs its own explanation.

Start with an activity, then examine the program

Joint Accreditation's August 2023 framework describes interprofessional continuing education as learning with, from, and about other professions. Its planning expectations include input from professions reflective of the intended audience, a team practice gap, and evaluation relevant to the team's learning or performance.

The framework also makes an important distinction: separately accredited organizations can produce education for teams, and jointly accredited organizations can produce education for a single profession. Joint accreditation is an organizational option. An audience containing several professions does not, by itself, explain the interprofessional learning in an activity.

Consider a proposed education program about a handoff between professional roles. The CE lead and clinical planners could begin with an actual coordination difficulty, identified through their local needs assessment. Where does one role's work depend on another's? What needs to become clearer between them?

Then examine the planning process. Have representatives of those roles helped define the difficulty and the intended change? Or have they been added to the invitation list after the content was finished?

The learning task should let participants examine those dependencies together. A case discussion might ask each role to explain what information it needs, what it contributes, and where an assumption creates a gap. That is a proposed design example, not a tested intervention. It gives planners something more specific to assess than whether different professions attended.

One example does not establish organizational readiness for accreditation. The CE office still needs to review the applicable eligibility requirements and its wider program. The exercise helps reveal whether the proposed change has an educational purpose the office can describe and support.

Give the additional work an owner

Bring that activity back to the operations discussion. Who will recruit the relevant planners, arrange their time, support the shared learning, and review the resulting evaluation? What can existing staff absorb, and what requires additional support?

A common registration system or shared accounting service can address an administrative problem. The Alliance conversation describes shared services as an option even when every unit is not ready to join an accreditation application. That may be a useful step in its own right; it does not establish that a team-learning program is in place.

Our earlier discussion of making program evaluation a recurring management process supplies a place to revisit these choices. Use the program's review process to ask whether the new structure is supporting the intended education and where workload has moved. The older provider discussion is an operating example, not evidence that joint accreditation saves resources.

Before making the case for expansion, write down what learners gain, what planners will do differently, and who will support that work. The accreditation decision becomes clearer when the proposed benefit has a corresponding educational process and a place in the office's workload.