Volume 64 - Summer 1996	Download

President's report by Cynthia Wells, EdD, CLS(NCA), MT(ASCP) President, Board of Directors

Recently, NAACLS passed another milestone when a governmental review committee recommended that NAACLS achieve continued recognition by the United States Department of Education (USDE) as an independent, autonomous accrediting agency. This significant achievement is discussed further in the executive director's report. The application to USDE has been only one of the critical projects that the NAACLS' volunteers and staff are completing.

The Board of Directors will adopt a new mission statement at its September meeting. Our current statement, written many years ago, does not reflect our current organization. This new statement will be the guide for the development of NAACLS in the future.

We are also striving to deal with the turbulent pressures on health care and our programs. From discussions with other educators, I believe that the significant issues include defining quality in education, meeting customer expectations, managing our accreditation and approval processes, and meeting financial pressures. Many of the recent changes at NAACLS are direct responses to these issues.

The new 1995 Essentials are streamlined and allow programs the flexibility for innovation. NAACLS is committed to allowing flexibility for programs to offer curricula that meet the minimums as defined in the Essentials and meet the constraints of the healthcare environment. At our recent review committee meetings, several innovative programs were considered. From my vantage point, I believe these programs are the tip of the iceberg. Such proposals will challenge us to consider new education delivery methods.

Meeting the needs and expectations of NAACLS' customers is crucial to our success. Identification of the actual customers of NAACLS could be argued. Suggestions might include the public or healthcare consumer, the physicians or other healthcare providers who receive laboratory services, the students and faculty in our programs, and administrators in healthcare institutions. Of course they are all customers. Most of these are customers of our overall quality effort; we do not deal with them directly. Our direct customers, then, are our programs. Over the last year we have taken positive action to deal with needs and expectations that these direct customers have brought to our attention. For example, one program expressed dismay that after two years of inactivity, we were requiring that the program close, thereby assuring that it would never reopen. As a result, we have changed the inactive status to allow programs to maintain inactivity over a longer period. This provides a less cumbersome reactivation process and the ability to respond more easily to changes in needs for practitioners.

Another suggestion was to change the requirements for affiliates both in regard to documentation and fee structure. There is now an option for videotaping an affiliate rather than conducting an actual onsite visit. This will reduce the costs for the program and help site visitors in their scheduling. The fee structure for affiliates is scaled to the number of institutions. Both changes represent our response to difficulties in obtaining clinical sites and the need to allow programs to develop new affiliates without substantial financial pressure.

The second step of the annual accreditation or approval fee increase is now complete. The additional revenue has placed NAACLS in a sound financial position. We are continuing our diligent efforts to reduce costs wherever possible.

Another continuing focus is improvement of the site visit process. For several years, we have offered a Site Visitor Orientation that has been very successful. We are considering alternatives for those individuals who cannot travel so that they may take advantage of the same information.

Excellence is assured only when NAACLS' processes and procedures meet the needs of the programs in the changing environment. As you participate with NAACLS as a program director, faculty member or volunteer, you have the unique opportunity to improve these processes.

Please do not hesitate to contact the office staff, any of the board members, committee members or me with your suggestions for improvement.

Top of the News
			A need for program evaluation by Cecile Sanders, MEd, MT(ASCP) CLSPRC Member
			Achieving serious applicant status by Denise K. Johnson Program Coordinator
			Announcing upcoming scheduled site visits
			Comings and goings
			Site visitors needed for hospital based programs by Olive M. Kimball, EdD, MT(ASCP) Executive Director
Features
			Dear Dr. NAACLS Clinical sites vs. enrichment sites
			Executive Director's corner by Olive M. Kimball, EdD, MT(ASCP) Executive Director
			President's report by Cynthia Wells, EdD, CLS(NCA), MT(ASCP) President, Board of Directors

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