Hospitals Applying for ACGME Accreditation

[KnicksDO]

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Not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this thread, but since I am still a pre-med (accepted DO) student I figured it couldn't hurt. If necessary, hopefully one of the moderators could kindly move this please.

With the merger looming for medical students enrolled in 2016 or prospective students for 2017, I'm sure we are all aware that all residency's will have ACGME affiliation and therefore those hospitals with current AOA affiliation must apply for ACGME accreditation. I was looking on http://opportunities.osteopathic.org/search/search.cfm to see if the hospitals in the state that I currently have my deposit in for '17 had applied for accreditation. I was wondering if anyone had an intel or thoughts on hospitals that haven't applied for accreditation at this point? Is there a reason for delaying it? Or do these hospitals not intend to have residents in their hospitals post-2019? In my case, the school I plan on attending has a current EM residency affiliation, but none of the hospitals have applied for accreditation. Does this mean future students wont be able to benefit from the years of a school having established residency's (assuming they dont apply in the future)? Does any body know how DO administrations plan to work around this to continue assisting their students with placements?

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Hospitals don't apply for accreditation... residency programs do. @hallowmann do you still have that link that shows all of the applied programs and their statuses?

 

[KnicksDO]

If you look on the the link you can search by state and see. I would like to think its updated and accurate since its from the AOA. Just found it somewhat alarming that even the small hospital residency program located down the road from the school I am attending at the moment hasn't applied for accreditation. I believe we even do pre-clinical stuff there in years 1 and 2 and its the only hospital they are affiliated with that has an OMM residency (if thats your thing). Was also curious on the time table to receive full ACGME accreditation such that if applying in 2019 would be no big deal because its only takes X months.

 

[cliquesh]

Most residencies have websites, so I'd recommend searching for this particular EMresidency's website and look for any information regarding their plans for acgme accreditation. If that information is not listed on the website then I'd recommend emailing the residency program coordinator.

Additionally, you shouldn't be aiming to do your residency at some small no named hospital.

 

[hallowmann]

Hospitals don't apply for accreditation... residency programs do. @hallowmann do you still have that link that shows all of the applied programs and their statuses?

OK, so technically hospitals can/do in some cases apply for ACGME accreditation as a "sponsor organization", but the affiliated OPTI or school could also act as the sponsoring organization for residencies in hospital systems, in which case it would not be necessary for the hospital to be a residency program sponsor.

That said, it doesn't sound like that is what OP is referring to, and rather they're talking about individual programs applying for ACGME accreditation.

Here is the link for the live ACGME report on residency application status by residency type:
https://apps.acgme.org/ads/Public/Reports/Report/18
And here are other live ACGME reports:
https://apps.acgme.org/ads/Public/

The AOA list might be accurate to a degree, but the ACGME is the accrediting body, and as such their report is going to be the most accurate and up to date.

As far as a reason for delaying applying, yes there are a few reasons a program might delay their application. One is that they're not required to apply yet. The AOA has designated deadlines for such programs to apply by or stop recruiting residents. Another reason is that maybe they want to keep certain aspects of their programs for as long as possible that they wouldn't be able to keep under ACGME accreditation. Another reason is because they don't intend to continue with further accreditation. Only the individual programs could indicate why specifically they haven't applied yet.

Now the application process may or may not affect the presence of med students at those sites for rotations. Again, this depends a lot on a program to program basis.

Now about the small hospital down the street from your school, honestly small residencies like that would be most susceptible to closure due to things like not having a sufficient faculty to resident ratio for ACGME accreditation, not having sufficient patient volume/procedures for ACGME accreditation, etc. But again, no one knows but the program.

As far as timeline goes, if it's a 4 year program, they need to apply by this Dec/Jan. If it's a 3 year program then its next year. The actual process could take as little as 6mos-1yr for attainment of initial ACGME accreditation. This process involves applying, a site visit, and an RRC meeting evaluating the program. Full ACGME accreditation will take longer, but all newly accredited programs will receive initial accreditation long before they get "full" accreditation. That doesn't really matter at this point, because with initial accreditation, the programs would be able to continue to recruit residents after 2020.