The aim of the diploma thesis is a description of accreditational process in health care facility, namely in a medical institution, finding of potentional problems by accreditational standards implementing and the influence of accredidation on health care quality in health care facility.

The aim of the thesis was to define and map various indicators of health care quality that are monitored in the Jindřichův Hradec Hospital. It was further checked whether the National Accreditation Standards for Hospitals pertaining to paramedical staff were observed and monitored in the hospital. Finally, individual indicators and standards were assessed and solutions were suggested where any shortcomings occurred.

Counselor education program faculties evaluate applicants to masters and doctoral level programs using criteria that the faculties hope will predict the applicant's potential for academic success and then effectiveness as a counselor, counselor educator, or researcher. Choosing admission criteria to assess this level of potential in an applicant is quite a task. Those counselor education programs that are accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) have the benefit of the admission guidelines provided by CACREP standards for accreditation. These guidelines give only basic, general direction to programs regarding their admission criteria but each individual program determines their own criteria for admission. The purpose of this study was to discover any recognizable trends in admission policy criteria, in terms of specific criteria used to evaluate and select students from the applicant pool, for CACREP accredited masters and doctoral programs. This study also sought to discover any recognizable trends in admission policy criteria, in terms of a specific number of criteria used to evaluate and select students for CACREP accredited master and doctoral counselor education programs. This qualitative study investigated 178 masters level CACREP accredited counselor education programs and 45 doctoral CACREP accredited counselor education programs. The CACREP Website provided contact names and Web address for each program. Admission criteria were pulled from the program Websites. If no criteria were present on the Website, the program contact person was contacted by phone or by email. A contact form for the masters level programs, and another for the doctoral level programs, was developed to record program criteria. A rate or return of 96% for the masters level programs and 91% for the doctoral programs was achieved. For the purposes of this study, a trend was defined as 1) any measure being required by 50% or more of the responding programs, or 2) the number of measures used by a program being equal to the mean number of measures used by all programs. The masters level program trends were for counselor education programs to use the following criteria to assess applicants: transcripts, grade point average (GPA), letters of reference, applications, Graduate Record Exam (GRE) scores, letters of intent, and interviews with faculty members. A trend was also discovered for masters level programs to use between 3 and 12 measures to assess applicants for admission with a mean score of 7.01, a median score of 7, and a mode of 7. The doctoral level program trends were for counselor education programs to use the following criteria to assess applicants: transcripts, letters of reference, letters of intent to address goals, aspirations, experiences, and purpose, GRE scores, applications, and GPA. A trend was also discovered for doctoral level programs to use between 4 and 10 measures to assess applicants for admission with a mean score of 8.097, a median score of 8, and a mode of 9. Given the high rate of return, the trends discovered can be said to reflect the admission criteria used to assess applicants for admission into CACREP accredited masters and doctoral counselor education programs in the United States. A limitation could be that the data was collected using different methods of communication in that some data was collected from Websites, some from email correspondence, and some data from phone conversations. It seemed that the Websites and the emails gave the admission criteria but the phone conversations gave an understanding of not only the criteria used but the process used in selecting students from the applicant pool.

The aim of this study was to provide an in-depth understanding of how a single private provider conducted an application for re-accreditation in line with the recently revised accreditation framework set out by the Council on Higher Education. This framework aims to promote an integrated approach to accreditation and increased autonomy for higher education institutions with regard to the reaccreditation of programmes. The research unpacked how accreditation was understood and applied within the context of the institution, placing emphasis on understanding the elements that promoted or inhibited quality as well as the tensions and contradictions that arose within this process. The driving question addressed by this research was: How does management within a South African private higher education institution engage with the re-accreditation process? Literature revealed that there is limited research on understanding quality assurance in private higher education in South Africa, and specifically on accreditation. Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) was considered the most effective lens to interpret the findings of this study, as research indicates that it is for teasing out the historical and cultural contradictions within as well as between people, tools and the environment within complex educational systems. Multiple data-gathering techniques, including semi-structured in-depth interviews, participant observations and documentation reviews, were conducted. The findings of this study illuminate the critical role of management and their respective interpretations of quality in the shaping of the application for re-accreditation, that balanced quality development and accountability requirements. The study highlighted contradictions and issues that inhibited meaningful engagement with accreditation as well as the enhancement of programme and institutional quality.

The thesis deals with the design of a suitable length standard for nanometrology. This length standard will be used for metrological traceability of the Rigaku nano3DX located at CEITEC Brno and the SIOS NMM-1 device which is located at ČMI Brno. The first part is focused on the description of these measuring instruments, the analysis of their metrological traceability requirements and the requirements for the material length standard. The second part is devoted to the concrete possibilities of the etalon design, 3D printing of the prototype of the standard and verification of its dimensional compatibility. At the end of the thesis, the evaluation and selection of the appropriate standard design is made.

Security requirements on information systems needs a way to be verified for fulfilment. Accreditation is a tool to measure the level of compliance of the security requirements. Unfortunately, the accreditation process also comes with challenges. To be able to complete the whole accreditation process the practitioners need to have a rigorous time plan and a generous budget, something that are not always available. The aim of this research is to identify challenges with time and costs in the accreditation process. Thereafter, building upon the identified challenges, aspects that could address time and costs are then proposed as a new model for accreditation. The theory presents the importance of accreditations and known challenges of today. The theory also justifies the need of reducing these challenges. This research collaborated with a company that has experience in accreditation. The company was used to gather empirical data to widen the view of accreditation in a qualitative way. The chosen method for this research was Design Science Research. The method was performed in two iterations and the demonstration- and evaluation-step was performed with an expert-panel consisted of employees from the collaborated company. The conclusion of the research is that the identified challenges can be assessed in a qualitative way to be handled with the new accreditation model developed in this research. The new accreditation model is based on a meticulous analysis on the identified challenges and the different steps in the risk management framework from National Institute of Standards and Technology.

No description available.

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) are statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care that are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options. CPGs’ recommendations have traditionally focused on informing clinicians and patients on the best options, i.e., supporting decisions that occur at the clinical encounter level. Considering all their advantages (a systematic and comprehensive review of the evidence, a multidisciplinary team assessing the evidence and balancing benefits and harms, and the additional considerations such as patients’ preferences, implementability and feasibility of interventions and their costs) CPGs have also become powerful tools to inform decisions and activities outside the clinical encounter. This, because the clinical encounter cannot be completely separated from other decisions that indirectly affect that level, such as those related to quality improvement activities and economic decisions in healthcare. Moreover, activities that are not directly related to the clinical encounter can benefit from CPGs, like education and licensing activities and research prioritization processes, or judicial decisions. The role of CPGs in all these activities has been neglected in the literature. In this study, I performed a critical interpretive synthesis of the literature to summarize the different roles CPGs play outside the clinical encounter and to understand how, and under what conditions CPGs are used in these roles. I also conducted an international survey to describe how frequent these roles exist, from the CPGs developers' perspectives. Lastly, I conducted a multiple case study to understand how and under what conditions CPGs play one of the main roles outside the clinical encounter (drug funding decisions), in two different settings (Colombia and Canada/Ontario). Based on the results, I developed a framework to describe and categorize the roles of CPGs outside the clinical encounter and to determine how and under what conditions CPGs are used in these roles. I highlighted the key areas that require additional methodological research and categorize the roles in main, secondary and unanticipated roles. I also described how international developers reported that CPGs play these roles and how these roles are part of their CPGs final aims in the second study. Lastly, in the case study, I revealed that CPGs were instrumentally used to inform one of the main roles, drug funding decisions, in the Colombian case, and they had a minor conceptual use in the case of Canada/Ontario. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The State of Florida legislatively authorizes Florida community colleges to confer workforce-oriented bachelor’s degrees. As part of the legislation, community colleges are required to achieve Level II (baccalaureate-granting) status through Florida’s regional accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools-Commission on Colleges (SACS-COC). When moving from SACS Level I to II, former community colleges need to meet the SACS CS 3.7.1 (Qualified Faculty), which requires that faculty who teach baccalaureate courses hold the minimum of a master’s degree in field. Further complicating matters, as baccalaureate granting institutions, colleges must also comply with CS 3.5.4, requiring 25% of course hours in the baccalaureate degree major to be taught by terminally-degreed faculty. The purpose of this study was to identify what issues related to faculty credentials, if any, have been observed by Florida’s community colleges as part of the process to gain SACS-COC Level II status. Results were analyzed through the lens of Travis Hirschi’s Social Control Theory. The results of this study indicate that colleges have reported changes in faculty employment after implementing the community college baccalaureate. The most common types of changes included requirements for faculty to complete additional graduate coursework and moving faculty to different programs with different conditions for credentialing. Other types of changes reported included faculty terminations and retirements. The study found strong evidence supporting the notion that finding terminally-degreed faculty is a problem for institutions moving from Level I to Level II status particularly in the fields of nursing and computer science/information technology. iv The findings indicate that as Florida’s community college baccalaureate programs continue to expand, colleges will need to find creative solutions to address SACS CS 3.5.4 requirement of terminal degrees for faculty

Arising from a literature study, the notions of quality and quality assurance (QA) were described. A literature study was undertaken regarding the current South African national QA policies on teacher education. A case study was conducted at Tshiya College of Education, which merged with the University of the North: Qwaqwa Branch during the rightsizing of higher education in 2001. The establishment of a QA system for teacher education, on micro level, was critically described. Action research was used to investigate the process of QA. A steering committee was established. Two QA seminars contributed toward an awareness campaign. A SWOTanalysis was done. A QA policy was designed, including a framework-for-action which was action researched by volunteers. Researchers developed their own improvement plans by: compiling their job descriptions; rating their effectiveness of task execution; and attending to emerging quality gaps to determine focus areas. Professional development was emphasised. Improvement plans for Micro Teaching and Media were action researched. Taxing circumstances, resulting from the higher education transformation and its effect on the research, were reported. Data emerged from describing the action research phases: planning, implementation, observation, and reflection for re-planning. Self-, peer-, and student-assessments were utilised. Apart from discussions and meetings, the researchers kept diaries and forms were designed for assessments. In both improvement plans, reflection-in-action led to identification of unforseen weaknesses which were addressed as side-spirals of the original plans. Reflection-on-action took place at a formal meeting to which external evaluators were invited. Strengths and weaknesses were determined and findings corroborated and clustered toward final recommendations. Intrinsic motivation was described as a precursor to involvement in QA. Leadership/management/planning was seen as creating infrastructure to encourage employees to focus on quality and movement toward the institution's vision. Implementation was described as taking action to put a realistic plan into practice. Teamwork was identified as a hallmark of action research and emphasis was placed on collective wisdom. It was concluded that meritorious modelling meant that educators should lead by example / Educational Studies / D.Ed.(Education Management)