Background

Accreditation of GME programs is accomplished through a peer review process and is based upon established standards and guidelines. Currently, ACGME accreditation activities depend to a great extent on a site visit and the Program Information Form (PIF). The site visit serves to clarify and verify information and measures the extent to which the PIF reflects reality. The ACGME operational support for data analysis and other support activities related to accreditation continue to move toward ongoing data collection and analysis rather than data collection just occurring at the time of the site visit. All programs will be profiled annually and concise reports will be provided to the Residency Review Committees (RRCs) for interpretation. This shift will offer many efficiencies for the program director, the sponsoring institution, and the Residency Review Committee (RRC).

The first phase of the transition from dependency on the PIF form and site visit to ongoing communication with all accredited residency programs and the sponsoring institutions involves moving a portion of the paper-based PIF to a user-friendly web-based system. The data elements critical for accreditation and common to all disciplines have been defined and these elements generally constitute the 'institutional and program demographic' section of the PIF.

Specifically, the Web Accreditation Data System (ADS) is an Internet based data collection system that contains the current data on file with ACGME for all sponsoring institutions and programs. Sponsors and accredited programs are required to verify and update general information annually in a secured environment. In addition, programs will be required to verify the accredited training of all residents and to communicate organizational changes as they occur (https://www.acgme.org/ADS).

Overtime, the PIFs for all specialties will be rewritten to exclude these common elements collected annually and prior to a site visit the program will print the web information and attach it to the specialty specific portion of the PIF. At this time the PIFs for several specialties have been re-organized and now follow the Part 1 and Part 2 format. They are available in the Program Information Form Section of the ACGME website (www.acgme.org). The specialties with the converted PIF can use the ADS system to generate Part 1 of the PIF. Contact WebADS@acgme.org to obtain the updated list of specialties with new PIFs. Over the next several years, more specialty specific information from the PIF will be made available over the web.

Other site visit related items are moved to the web for collection. Specifically, any program site visited after July 2002 must complete the Competencies and Assessment Form.

Data Collaboration with Other Professional GME Organizations
There are an increasing number of entrepreneurial GME data collection systems available. Some of these are tailored for a single discipline and others are quite broad. Because licensing data from an existing system would require post-collection primary source verification and due to the fact that many existing systems exceed the data needed for accreditation and may offer the data commercially, the ACGME will continue to collect and own the data needed for accreditation decisions.

You may be asked by several other organizations to provide program and resident data similar to the information provide in ADS, therefore, the ACGME has created a new feature in ADS that allows programs to request their completed information in file format for internal use or for submission to other organizations of your choice (Download My Data).

List of All Accredited Programs
To view basic information on ACGME-accredited programs select the Accredited Programs and Sponsors link from the ACGME homepage (www.acgme.org). This information on all programs is available to everyone, including potential residents, other programs, and the general public. This section has been revised to reflect data maintained and updated from the Accreditation Data System (ADS).

Access to the Application The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) has provided each program and sponsoring institution with a User Identifier and Password to access the data system. The Designated Institutional Officials (DIOs) will be contacted each year and will be asked to log on and verify their institutional data, as well as monitor the progress of their programs making annual updates. All specialties and subspecialties are required to update their data annually.

Access to the system is available through most commonly used Internet Browsers and providers. No specific software is required and no software will be sent or needs to be downloaded to operate the web accreditation data system.

Security
The accreditation data may be entered from any PC connected to the World Wide Web, and the site is secured by a 128 bit SSL encryption certificate obtained through the Verisign Corporation. The data you provide will be used by ACGME for accreditation, will be maintained confidentially, and will not be distributed for commercial use.

Help
Contact ACGME As you use this application, do not hesitate to call your assigned ADS Representative or email WebADS@acgme.org. Additionally, you may contact the ACGME support center (312-755-7464) and someone will direct you to the proper ADS staff. The Center is staffed from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Central Time Monday through Friday. Voicemail is used when staff is busy on other calls.