Each healthcare profession has its own set of accreditation criteria. Nursing continuing professional development (NCPD) is overseen by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Whether you are an accredited provider such as i3 Health or you are an educational partner working with an accredited provider, it's still important to understand the criteria that underlie NCPD activities.

ANCC accreditation criteria are grouped into four primary sections that are required for all organizations. The ANCC also offers the possibility of Accreditation with Distinction through a menu of criteria that expands three of those four primary sections with optional criteria.

The four sections are:

• Organizational Overview (OO)
• Structural Capacity (SC)
• Educational Design Process (EDP)
• Quality Outcomes (QO)

The Organizational Overview contains two criteria focused on the individual roles required to staff an NCPD Provider Unit (PU), or the team that is responsible for planning NCPD activities.

The Structural Capacity criteria covers commitment, accountability, and leadership. These criteria build on the previous section, focusing on both the leadership within the PU and how that leadership ensures NCPD is appropriate and effective.

The Educational Design Process gets into the weeds of how activities are planned, including the Standards for Integrity and Independence that have been covered in earlier posts in this blog.

The Quality Outcomes criteria focus on how the NCPD program is evaluated, the impact that it has, and how the PU implements its own process of quality improvement.

The menu for Accreditation with Distinction includes optional criteria under the headings of Structural Capacity, Educational Design Process, and Quality Outcomes.

In future posts, we will go into each criterion in detail. What do they require? And what do they mean to you?