Accreditation

Accreditation is a quality assurance process under which the services and operations of a health center are evaluated by an external body (The Joint Commission or the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care) to determine if applicable standards are met. This process is voluntary and provides the organization with the ability to measure and compare quality of services and performance against nationally recognized standards.

This page is an index of ACHA and other resources on this topic. Resources include association projects, programs, publications, guidelines, and more. Additional information may be available under “External Resources.”

ACHA Resources

Standards of Practice for Health Promotion in Higher Education [pdf]
These ACHA Guidelines provide measurable guidelines for enhancing the quality of health promotion programs in colleges and universities.

Healthy Campus 2010 establishes national college health objectives and serves as a basis for developing plans to improve student health. Healthy People 2010 can provide a foundation for shaping future health plans for institutions of higher education.

> National Health Objectives for 2010/2020 Coalition
Provides multidisciplinary, multiregional education, advocacy, and research on National Health Objectives.

> Healthy Campus 2010: Making It Happen
This ACHA companion manual to Healthy Campus 2010 helps in assessing campus and community health needs, and then developing, implementing, and evaluating programs, and much, much more.

The ACHA-PSAS gauges patient satisfaction and provides insight into the quality and performance of a college or university health service. Accreditation processes typically entail some form of organizational self-assessment of quality of care or services. The ACHA-PSAS can provide this self-assessment.

Consultation Services Program
ACHA’s Consultation Services helps campus health centers in assessing standards of care for clinical practice and ancillary services (e.g., preparing for AAAHC or Joint Commission pre-accreditation reviews, or preparing for a CAS self-assessment of clinical, health promotion, counseling, and/or alcohol, tobacco, and other drug services)

List of accredited university and college health services [pdf]
This list of institutions of higher education have received accreditation by either the Accreditation Association of Ambulartory Health Care (AAAHC) or the Joint Commission for the ambulatory health care provided within their student health services.

External Resources

ACHA thanks its committee, coalition, task force, and section volunteers for providing resources and links concerning this topic. ACHA does not endorse or accept responsibility for the content or use of external websites.

Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC)
The AAAHC serves as an advocate for the provision and documentation of high quality health services in ambulatory health care organizations. This is accomplished through the development of standards and through its survey and accreditation programs.

ACHA Liaison to the AAAHC:
Margaret Spear, MD
Pennsylvania State University
mes10@sa.psu.edu

The Joint Commission
The Joint Commission seeks to continuously improve the safety and quality of care through the provision of health care accreditation and related services that support performance improvement in health care organizations.

ACHA Liaisons to The Joint Commission:
David Lawrance, MD
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
lawrance@uiuc.edu

(Alternate)
Kathy Prediger, MA, RN-BC
University of Iowa
kathryn-prediger@uiowa.edu

Counsel for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS)
CAS has been the pre-eminent force for promoting standards in student affairs, student services, and student development programs since its inception in 1979. The CAS Professional Standards for Higher Education (7th edition) is available at the CAS website.