What does emergency preparedness have to do with accreditation? Why is it of concern to CAAHEP?

The answer is that like all major issues on CAAHEP's agenda, the leadership of CAAHEP (represented by the Board of Directors) determined that an effort to add emergency preparedness to CAAHEP's accreditation standards would be a critically important first step in helping to assure the nation that our health workforce is prepared to deal with disasters of all kinds.

Our Board was asked to consider emergency preparedness and the education of the health workforce, in the summer of 2006, when we were invited (along with several other accrediting bodies) to respond to a Request for Proposals by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). HRSA believed -- and the CAAHEP Board agreed -- that this national priority of preparation for disaster, whether man-made (as in terrorism) or natural (as in hurricanes, floods, epidemics) should be part of the pre-service education of health professionals. We further agreed that the mechanism of accreditation was an appropriate tool for catalyzing health educators to accept this challenge. [HRSA's RFP also was successfully responded to by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educatioonal Programs].

As part of the effort to educate our communities of interest about this important new initative, CAAHEP hosted a meeting (January 2007) of the CAAHEP Board of Directors and the Chairs of our Committees on Accreditation (CoA) where attendees were “wowed” by keynote speaker Dr. Ralph Shealy. Dr. Shealy’s PowerPoint presentation lays out powerfully the argument that health care workers have an obligation to use their education and skills in a disaster environment. To see a copy of Dr. Shealy’s presentation please click here.

This site is CAAHEP’s “hub” of emergency preparedness activity. You will find proposed Standards Revisions, educational support materials and on-line resources as well as a message area where you can see what others have to say and add your comments to this very important conversation.