Need for reform in health professions accrediting

At least 50 vocational or professional groups, exclusive of specialties within categories, now provide a health service. Each group seeks to identify itself as a specialty health service. Many have established accrediting procedures for maintaining educational standards, and the number is increasing. So great is the demand from the accrediting bodies that universities and academic health centers find that the cost in terms of money, time, and duplication of effort has become exorbitant, and thereby a major problem in the management of educational institutions. The duplication of effort leads to fragmentation of the entire accrediting process, and this, in turn, fosters inadequate sharing of health professional educational experiences. A model is presented that would lessen the burden of accrediting on educational institutions and simultaneously permit testing of the feasibility of a multiprofessional accrediting mechanism.