NAACLS at CLEC 2011
NAACLS was pleased to offer a new workshop titled, Gazing Into the NAACLS Crystal Ball: A Look at the Future of Outcomes Based Accreditation/Approval on February 17, 2011, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The workshop was held immediately prior to the ASCLS Clinical Laboratory Educators’ Conference.
Terry A. Taff, MA, MT(ASCP), SM, presented this workshop to 40 people. Ms. Taff is the Program Director, CLS/ MT Program, at St. John’s Mercy Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri. She is a MLS Educator on the NAACLS Review Committee for Accredited Programs and has developed and presented many workshops for NAACLS.
The objectives of this workshop were:
- Define outcomes based accreditation/approval.
- Compare current NAACLS accreditation/approval standards and processes with those that would be considered outcomes based.
- Determine the benefits to outcomes based accreditation/approval.
- Relate program advocacy and survival to the use of outcomes.
- Discuss tools and share best practices in outcomes measures in an interactive session. (Attendees were asked to bring tools and measures they currently use and share them with the group)
Tiffany McBurney, MS, MLS(ASCP)SM, Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas, said that she was impressed by the “interactive discussion of assessments of students to see how other programs handle situations.” She also said she appreciated learning about the volunteer opportunities that NAACLS has to offer.
Other attendees cited the networking value, audience interaction/discussion, learning from more experienced professionals, and instruction about the future of outcomes based accreditation/ approval as reasons for attending this NAACLS workshop!