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Higher education accreditation has spread internationally as a vehicle for quality assurance and improvement but is strongly influenced by accreditation practices in the United States. The organisational structure and processes of seven United States health professions accreditors were analysed to identify common characteristics that reflect general fitness for purpose and infrequent features that show potential to enhance the effectiveness of accreditation processes, increase engagement of and support by accredited institutions and programmes and provide greater transparency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MedEdPORTAL is a unique web-based peer-reviewed publication venue for clinical health educators sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The open exchange of educational resources promotes professional col-laboration across health professions. In 2008, the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) collaborated with AAMC to allow dental educators to use the platform to publish dental curriculum resources. Oral health is integral to general health; hence, collaboration among health care professionals brings enormous value to patient-centered care. The aim of this study was to con-duct a current survey of metrics and submission statistics of MedEdPORTAL resources. The data were collected using the Med-EdPORTAL search engine and ADEA and AAMC staff. The data collected were categorized and reported in tables and charts. Results showed that at the time of this study there were over 2,000 medical and dental resources available to anyone worldwide. Oral health resources constituted approximately 30 percent of the total resources, which included cross-indexing with information relevant to both medical and dental audiences. There were several types of dental resources available; the most common were the ones focusing on critical thinking. The usage of MedEdPORTAL has been growing, with participation from over 190 countries and 10,000 educational institutions around the world. The findings of this report suggest that MedEdPORTAL is succeeding in its aim to foster global collaborative education, professional education, and educational scholarship. As such, MedEdPORTAL is providing a new forum for collaboration and opens venues for promising future work in professional education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MedEdPORTAL is an online publication service provided at no charge by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). The intent is to promote collaboration and educational scholarship by helping educators publish and share educational resources. With MedEdPORTAL, users can quickly locate high-quality, peer-reviewed teaching materials in both the basic and clinical sciences. The existing MedEdPORTAL collection includes instructional and assessment materials to support the continuum of medical education (ie, undergraduate, graduate, and continuing medical education). The collection features resources designed to improve or enhance teaching and learning. During the past 2 years utilization of published resources and submissions to MedEdPORTAL have grown substantially. MedEdPORTAL currently averages 2 new submissions per day, with 1,000 individual submissions having been received for consideration for publication from educators representing countries around the globe. As of December 31, 2007, 45% of total submissions were accepted and published in MedEdPORTAL, 29% were accepted with revisions, and the remaining 26% were rejected and never published. More than 30 different countries access and utilize resources published and disseminated through MedEdPORTAL. The rapid growth of MedEdPORTAL suggests that it is meeting an important need for those in medical education. It is intended that MedEdPORTAL should continue to grow and eventually become the “one-stop shop” for publishing and locating high-quality, peer-reviewed educational resources that cover the continuum of medical education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]