Community of Support Issue - October 2024

Introduction

Universidad Ana G Méndez nursing faculty believe that accreditation is a process that helps in the identification of known and unknown challenges and a resource to improve students’ learning and instruction. This is achieved by conducting a comprehensive and meaningful assessment. Faculty designed established a guide called CAMINO (in Spanish) to accreditation. CAMINO in English means “road.” The aim of CAMINO is to establish a plan based on assessment results to address areas that need to be enhanced.

This guide was inspired by the nursing process and includes 6 steps:

• C-Challenges identification,
• A-Approach strategy,
• M-Management plan,
• I-Implementation of the plan,
• N- Needs identification, and
• O-Output and outcomes.

Challenges identification.

The first step is identifying challenges and opportunities. Faculty have designed different tools and polls to collect information to determine challenges and opportunities to comply with each Standard. It is important to pay attention to what faculty, staff, students, alumni, employers, and community have to say about the program. Input must be accurate, realistic, and should highlight achievements and challenges. Tools are revised often to ensure they are aligned with higher education and practice in nursing trends. Evidence and documentation that supports compliance with the Standards and Criteria, such as syllabi, rubrics, professional standards, policies, handbooks, organizational charts, and procedures among others are also collected and analyzed. The questions “What do we seek to attain in the program?” and “What do we do to fulfill program’s mission?” guide this step.

Approach strategy selection.

The second step is to identify the strategy to conduct accreditation process. Faculty have selected the SWOT analysis as the strategy to decide on a course of action. It involves identifying program’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This strategy encourages faculty to provide their opinions, ideas, and concerns, tells them where they are, gives them direction to set objectives, and provides evidence-based information to make a well-informed decision to attain the final goal, the accreditation. The following questions guide this step: What are the program’s strengths and advantages? How can weaknesses and threads be overcome? What opportunities can be addressed?

Management plan.

This step includes a formal planning tool that aims to outline objectives and strategies to meet the objectives. This step includes the identification of program resources. Resources may include fiscal, physical, and human. It also integrates the evidence available and the status of the objective. It provides an infrastructure to accomplish the main goal. Also, brings responsibility among faculty by defining their specific role in the process. The following questions guides this step: How will faculty track progress towards desired outcomes? Who is responsible for implementing and managing the plan?

Implementation of the plan.

In this step faculty implements or executes the plan. This step includes execution and monitoring of the plan. Monitoring ensures that weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are identified and addressed in a timely manner. The purpose of this step is to inform faculty of the concrete actions required to achieve the main goal. This step requires a high level of coordination and communication between faculty and staff. One crucial consideration in this step is to identify the chair who will coordinate direct all activities to meet the objectives of the plan. It is also important that everyone has a good understanding of the plan and how to achieve objectives as well as changes or additions to the plan during its implementation phase. Therefore, the plan must be discussed before implementation. Faculty, staff, and students’ opinions and feedback must be considered as they are the ones who deliver or receive education and services. The following question guides this step:

Needs identification.

This step includes the identification of solutions to problems or issues. Needs emerge from the plan but are also identified through monitoring of the plan. Monitoring may reveal additional needs that were not specifically identified in the plan. Faculty usually is encouraged to prioritize the issues or problems. The following questions guide this step: What is not working? What is missing?

Output and outcomes.

Is the actual result or accomplishments of the whole process. This step informs faculty the progress towards achieving outcomes and the changes that must be made in the program. These changes are related to administration, faculty and staff, student services, curriculum, and program outcomes. The following questions guide this step: What results did we expect and what were the actual? Were efforts effective to achieve the desired outcomes?

Finally, we inform faculty, staff and students about the purpose, roles, and responsibilities of the site visit team. You should also encourage them to participate in the site visit activities, such as the interviews, and tours to increase engagement in the process.

It is important to highlight that CAMINO to accreditation strategy is a best practice. It is a relevant and helpful method which has shown through documentation, evidence, and experience, that when implemented as established, it empowers faculty with a detailed process to increase efficiency and produce optimal outcomes. This specific best practice (CAMINO) is significant to nursing education because it helps faculty detect program needs, identify strategies for improvement, and achieve ACEN accreditation.

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