You have received your accreditation or your reaccreditation notice, and you can breathe a sigh of relief. You don’t have to go through this for 4 or 6 more years. Going through your next reaccreditation is the last thing on your mind, right? After the celebration, you can just settle in for the long term. Sorry to interrupt your reverie at this point, but there is a pressing question, “When is the best time to start getting ready for you next reaccreditation?” The answer is, “Right now!”
Now, I don’t mean that you should start righting up your next self-assessment next week, but there are things that you can do to make sure that the next time you are up for reaccreditation, everything will go smoothly. Here are some ideas:
- Support your mission statement: When you review your mission statement, do you have the business processes in place that will support you mission statement. For example, if you survey your established provider communities, do you have the processes and technology in place to work efficiently, or are you still using paper, PDF’s and email to work with your communities.
- Get good information: Do your processes promote accuracy and efficiency when gathering accreditation information from your authors and presenters when they make disclosures?
- Server your learners well: Is it easy for your learners to receive the materials they need to document their accomplishments? When a participant loses their record or certificate, and needs one at the last minute, is it a mad dash to find information, or is it easy to retrieve?
Proper planning and the use of efficient and accurate business process can make life much easier 4 or 6 years down the road.