In the single accreditation system, every accredited training program must reside in an accredited sponsoring institution (hospital, consortium, etc). A sponsoring institution must submit an application for accreditation before its residency programs file applications. Likewise, a residency program must submit and achieve initial accreditation before its fellowship program may apply.
There are several accreditation terms used in the single accreditation system. Pre-accreditation means that the AOA-approved program has submitted its application for ACGME accreditation. Pre-accreditation is not an accreditation status but rather indicates that the program and its residents are eligible for benefits agreed upon by the AOA, the ACGME, and AACOM. Only programs that were AOA approved by July 1, 2015, are eligible for pre-accreditation. Continuing pre-accreditation means that the program’s application was reviewed and not found in substantial compliance with the accreditation standards; the program is eligible to revise and resubmit its application without being subject to additional application fees. Applications found in substantial compliance with ACGME standards are granted initial accreditation. Sometimes, a residency program may be reviewed and found in substantial compliance with the accreditation standards before its sponsoring institution is granted accreditation. In those instances, the residency program is given the status of initial accreditation contingent upon sponsoring institution initial accreditation. To receive federal funds under Medicare, the program must maintain its AOA approval until it receives ACGME initial accreditation.
The AOA’s transition to the single accreditation system began with 1244 AOA-accredited training programs on July 1, 2015. Of these, 177 were dually accredited, meaning they had both AOA and ACGME accreditation. We are now approximately 20 months into the transition; as of February 27, 2017, 617 (50%) of all AOA-accredited programs have achieved ACGME accreditation or submitted an application for ACGME accreditation, including:
These data include programs that joined ACGME programs through an approved complement increase and AOA programs that combined resources to submit a single ACGME application.
Since July 1, 2015, 440 AOA programs have submitted applications for accreditation (
Table 1). The largest numbers of applications were from internal medicine (56), family medicine (55), surgery (general) (54), emergency medicine (51), and orthopedic surgery (41).