Changing the Dialogue: Accreditation as a Platform for Quality Improvement

CEPH accreditation is a powerful motivating force for change, providing a tangible, timeline driven process that challenges every member of a school/program community to reflect upon and improve their work.  Viewing accreditation as compliance may lead schools and programs to consider the CEPH criteria only when preparing for a site visit but accreditation can also be used as a springboard to developing a culture of continuous quality improvement (CQI).  CQI moves a school/program beyond accreditation deadlines to an organizational culture that encourages excellence and growth, with the site visit marking the changes that have occurred over time.

CQI is a both mindset and a process, asking schools/programs to critically examine ourselves as we set measurable goals, collect specific data, review and act on that data, and institutionalize data-driven changes.  This work must be supported by invested leadership who can identify facilitators of change and address barriers to adopting CQI, including aligning activities and rewards, reorienting faculty and staff from focusing solely on their individual courses and activities to working in teams and thinking at the programmatic level, and supporting the design and adoption of data systems. 

This presentation will describe strategies for using CEPH accreditation as the impetus for embracing continuous quality improvement, using the Boston University School of Public Health as an example; provide tools to assess an organization’s readiness for investing in CQI; and techniques for identifying and managing barriers to adopting CQI.