At its November 15, 2022 meeting, the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs (COA) reviewed proposed revisions to its Standards and policies.  These revisions, which were proposed by the COA's Standards and Policies Committee, were made as part of the COA's Petition for Continued Recognition by the U.S. Department of Education. An additional revision has been proposed to the COA's "Clinical Site Application" to enhance the efficiency of office operations. 

The revisions to the Standards and policies are outlined in this survey for comment. The policy revisions have been posted to the COA website (https://www.coacrna.org) and emailed to the COA’s community of interest for comment.  Please review the policies on the COA website and submit your comments in this survey. Comments are required for "Strongly Agree," "Disagree," and "Strongly Disagree" responses. 

The survey will take approximately 30 minutes to complete. Please note, the survey can be saved. After clicking “Save”, a page will appear with a new link to access the saved survey.  All feedback will be thoroughly reviewed and carefully considered by the COA in finalizing the revisions.

1. Please indicate your role in regards to nurse anesthesia education (select all that apply):
2.  Revisions to "Complaints Against Nurse Anesthesia Programs" Policy (Accreditation Policies and Procedures, C-15)

Policy language was added to item #3b3 to clarify the timeline for providing notice of formal complaints to nurse anesthesia programs. Further, a reference to the COA’s requirements for maintenance of complaint files, as described in the “Record Retention” and “Onsite Review” policies, was added as new policy item #6d.

Please indicate your overall degree of agreement with the proposed revisions to the "Complaints against Nurse Anesthesia" policy.
3.  Revisions to "Onsite Review" Policy (Accreditation Policies and Procedures, O-2)

Policy item #1f has been revised to clarify that documentation related to complaints against a nurse anesthesia program must be provided to reviewers as part of an onsite review. A minor clarification reflecting that onsite reviews are a minimum of two days in length was also added to policy item #2b1.

Please indicate your overall degree of agreement with the proposed revisions to the “Onsite Review” policy.
4.  Revisions to “Materials Available for Onsite Review” Policy (Accreditation Reviewers’ Manual, M-1)

A new policy item #1y has been added to reflect that documentation related to formal complaints submitted against a nurse anesthesia program (including formal correspondence from the COA) is among the suggested materials to be made available to COA onsite reviewers. Policy item #2d was revised to clarify that COA staff will also provide COA correspondence related to formal complaints as part of the backup materials shared with onsite reviewers.

Please indicate your overall degree of agreement with the proposed revisions to the “Materials Available for Onsite Review” policy.
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Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs