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Anesthesiologist Assistant Education
Accrediting AA Educational Programs
The Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP) is a programmatic post-secondary accrediting organization recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA).
CAAHEP is the only nationally recognized accreditor for Anesthesiologist Assistant education, and ARC-AA is the only organization recognized by CAAHEP to provide accreditation services for Anesthesiologist Assistant educational programs.
What is Accreditation?
Accreditation is a process to assess the quality of institutions, programs, and services to ensure they meet established standards.
In post-secondary education, there are two kinds of accreditation:
- Institutional Accreditation
which assesses whether a school has met certain minimum standards regarding administration, resources, faculty, and facilities. - Programmatic Accreditation
which assesses specialized or professional programs to ensure that the education provided meets acceptable levels of quality. The program’s sponsor has already received institutional accreditation.
Accreditation, along with certification and licensure, is a tool intended to help ensure a well-prepared and qualified workforce providing health care services.
Accreditation is About Quality & Accountability in Education
It is the formal evaluation of an educational program, institution, or system against defined standards by an external body for the purposes of quality assurance and enhancement.
Ultimately, accreditation is about ensuring the competency of a program’s graduates entering the profession. This is particularly essential for healthcare professionals.
Accreditation
Accreditors are nongovernmental organizations. The Accreditation Review Committee for the Anesthesiologist Assistant is a not-for-profit, peer-driven organization that provides the accrediting activities for more than 20 Anesthesiologist Assistant programs nationwide on behalf of the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP), the only nationally recognized accreditation organization for Anesthesiologist Assistant education.
Accreditation Standards
To achieve accreditation, an Anesthesiologist Assistant education program must comply with the CAAHEP Standards and Guidelines, which include:
- Program Sponsor the institution sponsoring the program defines and establishes its own organizational and administrative structure and management. The institution has a responsibility for maintaining administrative and academic control over its affiliates, and for assuring quality, availability of resources, supervisory accountability for and integrity in the education conducted within its affiliates.
- Program Goals that are established to provide a regular assessment of learning outcomes to ensure Anesthesiologist Assistants entering the workforce meet minimum expectations for knowledge, skills, and behavior.
- Program Resources sufficient to meet the established goals, including faculty and staff, curriculum and instructional materials, computer resources, finances, facilities and equipment, and clinical affiliates.
- Student Evaluation & Assessment that must be conducted on a recurrent basis and with sufficient frequency to provide both the students and program faculty with valid and timely indications of the student’s progress toward and achievement of key competencies, leading to safe clinical practice and public protection.
- Fair Practices designed to protect the health and safety of patients, students, faculty, and other participants associated with Anesthesiologist Assistant education activities, including disclosure, non-discriminatory, record-keeping, and other legal compliance requirements.
The Value of Accreditation
Education Quality
Accreditation is about quality and accountability in education. It is the formal evaluation of an educational program, institution, or system against defined standards by an external body for the purposes of quality assurance and enhancement. In the spirit of continuous quality improvement, the accreditation process provides feedback – both from accreditation staff and peer reviewers – to identify areas for improvement as well as best practices and potential innovations. This continuous enhancement process can also prevent the stagnation or “fossilization” of a program.
Anesthesiologist Assistant education programs benefit from accreditation as it assures quality education standards and provides peer support to meet those standards and realize consistent achievement by students.
Student Competency
Accredited programs promote safe and effective learning environments while continuously improving to prevent outdated or harmful practices. Anesthesiologist Assistant students can be confident that successful completion of study at a CAAHEP-accredited Anesthesiologist Assistant program will make them eligible to sit for the National Commission for Certification of Anesthesiologist Assistants (NCCAA) exam to be nationally certified as an Anesthesiologist Assistant and be recognized as professionally competent by potential employers.
Accreditation benefits Anesthesiologist Assistant students, ensuring the program meets essential national standards.
Workforce Readiness
Anesthesiologist Assistant students must graduate from a CAAHEP-accredited program to be eligible to sit for the National Commission for Certification of Anesthesiologist Assistants (NCCAA) exam and become nationally Certified Anesthesiologist Assistants (CAA).
Among Anesthesiologist Assistants, all of whom graduated from an accredited Anesthesiologist Assistant education program in 2022, 100% passed the NCCAA examination. Accredited Anesthesiologist Assistant education programs must maintain a minimum of a 90% cumulative pass rate of its graduates on the NCCAA examination. When students pass the NCCAA exam, it indicates that they have mastered key education standards and are competent to enter the Anesthesiologist Assistant profession.
The Anesthesiologist Assistant profession benefits from accreditation by meeting national education standards to ensure a well-prepared and qualified workforce.
Healthcare Outcomes
Accreditation ensures programs meet minimum standards, thus decreasing the potential variation in content and quality between programs. Accreditation also promotes innovation and the adoption of new norms throughout the education system. By reducing the potential variances between programs, accreditation ensures the competence of potential graduates and their ability to effectively operate in any healthcare setting.
The public can be assured that, no matter where they are in the nation, Certified Anesthesiologist Assistants have received the education to deliver quality care in a consistent manner.
