ACCREDITCON guests receive discounted rates from $204 at the Omni Louisville Hotel, also the site of ACCREDITCON. Discounted rates end Tuesday, May 3, 2022 @5pm Eastern. If the room block fills before May 3, the reservation will be accepted at the current hotel rate.

After May 17, only on-site registrations will be accepted (starting June 1.) Only credit cards can be accepted with on-site registration. If you haven't registered yet, now is the time to do so! Seats are limited!

CE Credits: 8

Addressing Standard III.A.2. Hospital/Clinical Affiliations and Field/Internship Affiliations and III.C. Curriculum

CE Credits: 4

The CoAEMSP is increasing its site visitor cadre and is seeking Paramedic educators and physicians to become site visitors for the CoAEMSP.

The training workshop will be hosted on Tuesday & Wednesday, June 28 & 29, 2022, in Dallas, Texas, for applicants who have been selected to be site visitors.

The deadline to apply is May 1, 2022.

Did you know that CAAHEP, the accreditor of Paramedic programs, also seeks its own recognition?

The Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) “recognizes U.S. accrediting organizations, including regional, national career-related, national faith-related and programmatic accrediting organizations.”

To promote the understanding of CHEA's value to students, parents, and the public, it has produced a 2-minute video highlighting CHEA and its work on behalf of higher education accreditation and quality assurance (see below.) CHEA is committed to its members to advancing quality assurance and improvement in higher education.

On May 1, 2020, the CoAEMSP Board of Directors approved Policy XVII – Interpretations of CAAHEP Standards. This policy allows various stakeholder groups the opportunity to provide input regarding proposed language for the CoAEMSP Interpretations of the CAAHEP Standards and Guidelines through an open public comment period. The public comment period will last 45 days, and all comments will be reviewed during the next scheduled CoAEMSP Board of Directors meeting.

The CoAEMSP Interpretations of the CAAHEP Standards and Guidelines is a companion document that contains interpretations of the CAAHEP Standards and Guidelines which are adopted by the CoAEMSP through policies. The CoAEMSP developed interpretations for several CAAHEP Standards and Guidelines during its February 2022 Board of Directors meeting and encourages all Paramedic educational programs and interested parties to carefully read the proposed interpretation for each of the specified CAAHEP Standards listed below and submit comments using the provided Survey Monkey link. The CoAEMSP will consider the comments received for each interpretation.

Please note: all comments are for the interpretation of the CAAHEP standard, not the CAAHEP standard itself.

The public comment period for the interpretations of the CAAHEP Standards specified below will end April 20, 2022, and all comments will be reviewed during the May 2022 CoAEMSP Board of Directors Meeting.

Provide comments to the interpretations for the following CAAHEP standards here.

CoAEMSP Interpretations of the CAAHEP Standards and Guidelines

The CoAEMSP Annual Accreditation fee invoice will be sent to all Program Director emails on May 4th, 2022.

To save time, streamline processes, reduce data entry, and eliminate additional processing fees, the CoAEMSP strongly encourages your program to pay invoices by ACH (Automated Clearing House). ACH payments are electronic payments that transfer funds directly from a checking account to the payee. Instead of writing out and mailing a paper check, the funds move automatically.

You may pay invoices by Automated Clearing House (ACH) or the View and Pay Invoice option that will appear as a link in the emailed invoice. As a reminder, credit cards are not accepted. The CoAEMSP will accept checks this year; however, please note that we are moving toward requiring all payments being made via ACH or “View and Pay” in the future.

All programs selecting to pay by ACH should email payment advice to sybil@coaemsp.org. A payment advice provides the details on payment and provides advance notice to the recipient.

The advantages of paying via ACH or the “View and Pay” option are:

•   Pay directly through the invoice

•   Secure environment

•   Payment processes in 3 days instead of 3 weeks (checks)

•   Automatically applies to the invoice (less data entry errors)

Have questions? Please contact Sybil Land at sybil@coaemsp.org for any questions regarding invoicing/payments.

Education programs across the country are being held accountable for program outcomes, typically including passing rates on credentialing examinations, placement of graduates, and attrition/retention of students. Of these three outcomes, retention tends to be the most challenging for programs. The reasons students leave are varied and include academic, financial, personal, and pursuing other career opportunities. This session will explore the outcome threshold metric, how it is established, why retention is important and approaches to increasing retention in Paramedic programs.

At the conclusion of this presentation, the participant will be able to:

•   Discuss the rationale for the CoAEMSP retention threshold.

•   Discuss why retention is an important metric in higher education.

•   Describe strategies to retain students in the Paramedic program.

View the recording and download the slides here.

The Annual Report is based on the 2020 calendar year and its graduates; it is due May 15, 2022.

This allows the program at minimum one (1) year to gather all relevant data and allows sufficient time to send out and gather results for the Graduate and Employer Surveys for the applicable annual report year.

Paramedic educational programs are required to submit an annual report that encompasses the following three (3) key metrics:

•     Retention

•     Positive Placement

•     Success on the credentialing written (cognitive) exam.

All CAAHEP Accredited and CoAEMSP Letter of Review (LoR) programs will be required to complete the Annual Report and publish the outcomes from their annual report on their website. Outcomes will be for the year reported (and no longer based on a 3-year average).

As the CoAEMSP continues to strive to become more outcomes-oriented in its approach to EMS education, the evaluation of identified outcomes measures becomes increasingly important.

Have questions? Email AnnualReports@coaemsp.org.

Above: Webinars on the Annual Report offered in February were recorded and can be found here.

Now more than ever, we’d like to acknowledge the vital role of EMS professionals in our country. We honor these individuals who are Rising to the Challenge to help their communities every day. We support EMS Week because we believe in educating the public and stakeholders about prehospital medicine and the services provided by EMS to the community. And we believe there’s no better time to celebrate the accomplishments of EMS professionals than EMS Week. We want to shine a spotlight on those who serve and promote camaraderie among every EMS team in every community nationwide.

Produced by the American College of American Physicians (ACEP), in partnership with the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT), national EMS WEEK is designed to celebrate, unite, and inspire the men and women of EMS 365 days a year.

The CoAEMSP is a proud sponsor of EMS Week. Learn more about the campaign at emsweek.org

For a current list of CoAEMSP LoR and CAAHEP Accredited programs, visit www.caahep.org.

Jennifer Fetterley, MBA, EMTP, Program Director of the Paramedic Program sponsored by College of Emergency Services, Clackamas, Oregon, earned their MBA, conferred on March 21, 2022, by Strayer University.