Dr. Mark L Diana

The importance of higher education program accreditation, particularly in professions without individual licensure or certification, has been the subject of continued debate since the earliest days of such accreditation efforts and continues to stimulate thoughtful discussion about value. It has been more than twenty years since health management and policy educators have critically examined the educational system's performance in developing new leaders for the nation’s health care system.
In the spirit of engagement of a broad group of interested parties who are involved with accreditation of graduate health management education and with an emphasis on continuous improvement, an ad hoc group of health management faculty with long histories of leadership and involvement in both AUPHA and CAHME convened in July 2023 as a study team. The goal was to provide AUPHA and CAHME with insights on community perceptions on three topics: 1) the value of accreditation, 2) what is working well with accreditation, and 3) what is not working well. The intent was twofold: to help identify opportunities to improve the accreditation experience and to ensure that the communities of interest are involved in discussions and informed about changes.
The team conducted a modified Delphi study of health management and policy education experts, which determined consensus views on the three questions about program-level accreditation in the field. This methodology was selected for its validated strength to determine the experts' consensus view, as evidenced in its reported use in the research literature. The Delphi approach invites original thinking, offers group deliberation processes, and removes power imbalances.
The consensus from the experts in health management and policy education is that while there is current value in program-level accreditation, there are concerns about specific aspects of accreditation. Five specific themes for program-level accreditors emerged from this work, supported by recommendations that, if enacted, would lead to increased value for the field. Individuals involved in program-level accreditation and certification in health management policy and education, both as leaders and as participants, are encouraged to engage in a strategic process to adopt and implement these recommendations. Previous initiatives and calls for reform and improvement in the quality assurance processes for health management education have sometimes resulted in substantial change and have sometimes been disregarded. The hope is that this work, which involved substantial engagement of the communities interested in both the education processes and the competencies of the graduates from those processes, will be given serious consideration and lead to improvements in the near future.

In the spirit of engagement of a broad group of interested parties who are involved with accreditation of graduate health management education, and with an emphasis on continuous improvement, an ad hoc group of health management faculty with long histories of leadership and involvement in both AUPHA and CAHME convened in July 2023 as a study team. We shared common interests to address questions being raised in many venues about perceptions of the value of accreditation of graduate health management education. We held initial discussions with the executive leaders of CAHME and AUPHA about our proposed study in order to ensure transparency; this work was conducted independently of both organizations. Our goal is to provide CAHME and AUPHA with insights on community perceptions on three topics: 1) value of accreditation; 2) what is working well with accreditation; and 3) what is not working well. The intent is twofold: help identify opportunities to improve the accreditation experience, and ensure that the communities of interest are involved in discussions and informed about changes.