Streamlining Reaccreditation: A Process Improvement Approach for Low-Stress Re-accreditation

Panelists will share their first-hand experiences successfully navigating multiple certification programs through the re-accreditation process. Programs often face significant challenges in earning re-accreditation. Many fall behind with compliance experiencing re-accreditation as a re-occurring nightmare rather than a valuable, quality improvement tool. Challenges include lack of consistent policy implementation, ongoing exam development, and quality management activities and more.

This session addresses these challenges and with recommendations for operationalizing accreditation requirements from a process improvement perspective. The presenters will review expectations for accredited programs, discuss common challenges to maintaining accreditation, highlight the common deficiencies noted by reviewers, and offer specific advice on how to build internal systems to improve the re-accreditation process.
In February 2023, the NCCA announced a policy change impacting programs that received re-accreditation with one-year of compliance monitoring.

The Commission communication stated, they were “surprised and concerned” to find that some programs that previously received one year of accreditation with compliance monitoring again warranted the same decision on the next re-accreditation application. It also stated, “This was a clear indication that although these programs had resolved all deficiencies within one year as required, sustained improvement did not occur, which was the original intent.”

The policy change reinforces the NCCA’s expectations that accredited programs implement policies consistently and conduct ongoing exam development throughout the five-year accreditation period. This has always been NCCA’s expectation, however the updated policy creates a mechanism for the Commission to audit the program prior to re-accreditation to ensure that these expectations are met.
The timing of this session allows programs to take pro-active steps to avoid ongoing auditing by the NCCA.