Approved CE Versus Accredited Certificate: Which helps with career development in dental hygiene?
Aug 16, 2024We all know that getting a new degree helps with a career transition, but what if it's not possible for you at this time, due to finances or time restraints? The answer is certificate programs, which are at a level between basic continuing education in dental hygiene, and a degree. Do a quick Google search and you will notice a trend happening now that online education has become so popular. Students love being able to watch lectures as many times as needed, and pace their learning based on their unique style and needs.
There are actually quite a few certificate programs and certifications in dental hygiene, and plenty of hygienists with specialty knowledge who are working in unique jobs and settings; but since any person or organization can put out a program, how do you find a quality one that continually strives for improvement and excellence?
Choosing a certificate program or certification as a dental hygienist:
- Ask questions before enrolling: Find out how many credits are offered, and who approved the CE. Ask to review their standards so you are empowered to measure programs against each other for quality and continuous improvement. Is there a criterion-referenced final assessment? Is there a Capstone Project or other final assignment to assist with implementation of what was covered? Do they require renewal? Are there any sponsorships they need to disclose?
- Make sure the individual program has been externally audited by a qualified accrediting body and is re-audited on a continuous basis: Internal audits by advisory groups and peer reviewers are great, but that should be the bare minimum of a certificate program’s audit process. What standards are the certificate program expected to maintain? Who vets them? Is an annual internal AND external audit completed? Are their standards CE based only, or are there specific certificate program standards in place? When must their accreditation be renewed?
- Read reviews and talk to certificate holders: Did the program go above and beyond typical dental hygiene CE in depth, length, and testing or was it more of a “certificate of attendance” that everyone received? Did the program increase their confidence in the areas covered? Are program metrics and student satisfaction scores made public?
- Check their timeline: If a program is new, they may not have enough data to meet all of the standards yet. It takes a minimum of 60 students to complete a course before all necessary data can be gathered and quality measures for improvement set. Then it can take months to implement all of the changes. As long as a program is working toward accreditation it's a good sign they are committed to quality and excellence.
The Oral Systemic Educator Certificate Program by National Network of Healthcare Hygienists (NNHH) is the first dental certificate program to meet the standards set forth by AGD PACE for dental continuing education (CE), as well as ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB) for certificate programs through ASTM E2659-18 1. It is a huge milestone for the dental hygiene profession, offering more options for career transitions, and higher quality assurance for stakeholders.
ANAB accreditation for certificate programs conveys to a program’s customers that their awarded certificates represent the best quality education and training 2. Certificate programs are faster and more affordable than degrees, offering specialized knowledge for a specific career path, and helping certificate holders stand out among other applicants. NNHH has a mission of helping RDHs specialize in areas of dentistry and medicine, like RNs can. Their achievement will continue to advance the quality level hygienists will come to expect in CE in the coming decade, while preparing them to specialize in one area or more.
What is the difference between Approved & Accredited CE courses, Approved or Accredited CE Providers, and an Accredited Certificate Program?
It is confusing to determine the level of continuing education when no one standard is followed. This article serves to define terminology and standards that already exist, and empower registered dental hygienists to do their own research, question quality measures of programs and providers, and help to elevate our profession by shining light on the difference between approved or accredited CE and accredited certificate programs.
A common misconception in dentistry is that an approved continuing education (CE) provider is the same as an accredited program, yet both ADA CERP, and AGD PACE state in their standards that the terms “accredited,” “accreditation,” “certification” or “endorsement of” must not be used in conjunction with approval, and that providers must not make statements implying approval or endorsement of individual courses 3,4.
Unfortunately a high percentage of AGD and ADA approved providers are marketing themselves as accredited programs, causing confusion among students who enroll in their courses. Individuals and organizations are approved to offer CE through a professional organization that has set standards for CE. Individual programs or courses are not assessed or accredited by AGD or ADA, as stated on their program approval standards.
AADH states on their website that their CE approval program is modeled after AGD PACE and ADA CERP, but they have omitted the clause about the term accreditation in their standards document 5, and do use the term accreditation on their website to describe their CE approval process. Additionally, ADHA and the Under One Roof conference state they are accredited providers of CE through AADH.
What is accreditation?
Oxford languages defines accreditation (noun) as “the action or process of officially recognizing someone as having a particular status or being qualified to perform a particular activity.” So overall it means different things to different professions and has varied meaning depending on whether a person, organization or program is being accredited and the standards related to the accreditation status.
What is a certificate program?
ASTM defines a certificate program as a non degree-granting education or training program consisting of (1) a learning event or series of events designed to educate or train individuals to achieve specified learning outcomes within a defined scope, and (2) a system designed to ensure individuals receive a certificate only after verification of successful completion of all program requisites including but not limited to an assessment of learner attainment of intended learning outcomes. ANSI accredited certificate programs must be in compliance with all168 standards of ASTM E2659-18.
As far as continuing education goes in dentistry, it is clear that the word accreditation is not to be used to describe approved CE, as individual programs have not been measured against standards.
As far as dental hygiene CE is concerned, it appears that the AADH (and providers they approve such as ADHA, and UOR) use the term accreditation to mean approved CE.
Types of Certificates & Certifications
CERTIFICATE OF ATTENDANCE OR PARTICIPATION (ALSO CALLED CE CERTIFICATE)
When an RDH attends a live CE presentation, they receive a certificate of attendance or participation, which is also often call a CE certificate. No quiz or summative assessment is required.
For on-demand CE in dentistry, a 3-5 question summative quiz is required, but there is no passing grade set in any of the standards, or any guidelines on the caliber of the questions.
In both cases, a CE certificate will be granted with the ADA subject codes included.
CERTIFICATE PROGRAM (ASTM E2659-18)
The global standard for certificate programs is ASTM E2659-18. In an accredited certificate program, a certificate of completion is awarded for completing all requisites, including a robust criterion-referenced final assessment. No certificate of attendance is offered. Students must complete 100% of the program, and pass the final assessment which goes through an in-depth assessment by a psychometrician and a team of subject matter experts. Pre-requisites and other requisites may be required and audited prior to award of the certificate of completion. Certificate programs do not require renewal.
CERTIFICATION (ISO/IEC 17024)
The global standard for certification of personnel is ISO/IEC 17024. An accredited certification includes learning modules (in person or remote), a secure criterion-referenced final exam at an outside testing facility (like our dental hygiene boards), has a term (date it expires), and requires renewal. It prepares personnel to perform new job duties safely, and is required to do the job. Think of certifications in nursing, or "board certified" physicians. Most dental organizations offering certifications do not know there are global standards set defining them, and therefore are creating their own standards for awarding a certification, or awarding a certification when they are really only offering a certificate program.
Credentials
According to ANAB, the term "certified" is reserved only for accredited certification programs. Certificate program graduates cannot use the term "certified," but they may state they hold a "certificate in" or are a "certificate holder" of the program they completed. Accredited programs must offer a specific credential in compliance with the standard, and manage the use of that credential.
Understanding the Standards
Dental hygiene schools are accredited with different standards (CODA) than AGD or ADA have set for dental CE. AADH uses their own set of standards for continuing education, similar to but not exact to dental organizations, and ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB) has set completely different standards for certificate programs than we see in typical dental or dental hygiene CE. An ANSI accredited certificate program may have also met the standards of approved CE, but an approved or accredited CE provider or course has not met the standards of an ANSI accredited certificate program.
ANSI/ANAB accreditation signifies that the certificate holder or certified personnel has completed a prescribed course of study designed specifically to meet predefined industry requirements-and that the organization offering the program has met, and continues to meet, standards for quality improvement.
New Career Opportunities for Dental Hygienists
The certificate programs NNHH offers are helping to prepare RDHs to collaborate with medical specialty providers, or work in healthcare systems. NNHH has offered AGD PACE approved continuing education credit for their programs all along, but the board of directors voted in 2022 to pursue ANSI (ANAB) certificate program accreditation, because of the distinctive standards separate from dental and dental hygiene CE programs.
The global standard ASTM E2659-18 has set 168 standards for certificate programs that are audited by ANAB. They include, but are not limited to:
- Organizational structure and administration
- Financial Management
- Instructional design plan (course descriptions and objectives are only a small portion of the design plan)
- Criterion-referenced assessment
- Alignment of advertised course objectives to the content and final assessment
- Corrective and preventive action policies and processes
- Internal & external annual audits
- Management reviews
- And so much more
In dentistry, there are currently no accreditation bodies that credential individual CE programs, like ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB) does, which audits based on global standards set for certificate programs.
Jamie Dooley, NNHH founder and Certificate Program Manager states,
“ANSI accreditation is a mark of quality assurance that shows excellence in programming that students and prospective employers can trust. It’s expensive and time consuming to improve a program to gain compliance with such high standards, but dental hygienists and the patients they serve deserve it, and the hospitals and healthcare systems they are beginning to work in demand it. We will begin pursuing ANSI accreditation of our Oncology Certificate Program as soon as we have enough data to do so. All certificate programs NNHH develops will pursue accreditation, and we have began collaborating with others in dental hygiene that want to offer high-level certificate programs, but don't have the time, start-up funds or expertise to do so. We make sharing unbiased, unsponsored education hygienist to hygienist easy and affordable."
Connect with NNHH at https://healthcarehygienists.org
Citations
- ASTM E2659-18 - standard practice for certificate programs. ANSI. (n.d.). https://webstore.ansi.org/standards/astm/astme265918
- Kelechava, B. (2024, June 14). Standard practice for certificate programs - ASTM E2659-18(2024) - ANAB blog. The ANSI Blog. https://blog.ansi.org/anab/standard-certificate-programs-astm-e2659-18/
- AGD PACE program guidelines revised March 2024, Page 13, Standard IX, 2.D, Retrieved August 15, 2024 from https://www.agd.org/docs/default-source/pace/pace-guidelines-march-2024.pdf?sfvrsn=e35a60d3_0
- ADA CERP Recognition Standards & Procedures, Page 16, Standard XI, 2.6, retrieved August 15, 2024 from https://ccepr.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/ccepr/files/cerp_standards.pdf?rev=c69c4a5f26054558b69c5484c30a06a1&hash=4FBC52D75ABD1051FC2C55E9F345EE34
- AADH Standards of Quality Continuing Education retrieved August 15, 2024 from https://form.jotform.com/ofAmerican/ce-provider-application--american-a
