by Jennifer Kowalewski

For the third time since 1997, the Centers for Osteopathic Research and Education (CORE) system will undergo an on-site inspection — Thursday, Feb. 16, and Friday, Feb. 17 — by the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) to accredit this Osteopathic Postdoctoral Training Institution (OPTI). An OPTI is a community-based training consortium made up of at least one college of osteopathic medicine and one hospital. Other hospitals and health-care facilities may also partner within the consortium. There are currently 13 hospitals affiliated with CORE.

CORE representatives will meet with members of the AOA inspection team to determine how well CORE is achieving established benchmarks throughout its statewide osteopathic medical education consortium.

“OPTIs provide a mechanism to ensure quality programming for AOA-approved graduate medical education (GME) programs,” says Cheryl Riley, assistant dean for academic affair and CORE operations.

“Each hospital in Ohio that is a member of CORE has osteopathic GME programs co-sponsored by OU-COM and participates in this OPTI inspection for continuing accreditation.”

In July 1995, the AOA Board of Trustees passed regulations and developed standards to accredit OPTIs. The CORE system is the nation’s first accredited OPTI (1998), providing an infrastructure to promote quality osteopathic pre-doctoral and post-doctoral education at participating teaching hospitals throughout Ohio. CORE was inspected again in May 2002, receiving continuing accreditation in 2003. Riley says that the Accreditation Document for OPTI outlines stringent administrative and educational standards pertinent to such things as organization, governance, financial resources, facilities, research efforts, faculty appointments, curriculum development and program evaluation. An OPTI Self Study was conducted by CORE staff and submitted to the AOA sixty days prior to the upcoming inspection to substantiate the CORE system’s compliance with the established standards.

“Those individuals who are an integral part of providing services that address these standards in the CORE system contributed to the preparation of this report,” Riley says, adding the next step is the actual on-site inspection. “During the visit, the inspectors will meet with key stakeholders who represent the CORE system.”

On Thursday, the inspectors will be at the Athens campus, completing document review and conducting interviews with finance, faculty, curriculum, library, research, and Osteopathic Principles and Practice representatives to mention a few. On Friday, the inspectors will travel to the Columbus CORE site to meet with interns, residents, and directors of medical education as well as the CORE Academic Steering Committee (CASC) as they continue the two-day inspection process.

“They will meet with a lot of people within the CORE system to see if our OPTI is meeting the standards as outlined in our Self Study,” she says.

Following the two day on-site survey, the inspection team will have an exit conference with the CASC to let members in attendance know their findings and recommendations. The visiting team’s report is forwarded to Keith Watson, D.O., the chief academic officer for this OPTI, for comment before submitting their final report to the AOA for review. Riley says that the entire accreditation process takes approximately six months and expects to receive official notification regarding OPTI accreditation status by September 2006.

“We would like to have no major citations since CORE not only tries to meet OPTI standards but strives to exceed them,” she says. We’re doing our best to prepare for the inspection and hope to obtain excellent ratings.”