LCME — Liaison Committee on Medical Education accreditation tips

Medical schools are crucial for preparing skilled doctors for the challenging world of medicine. This responsibility means medical education programs must meet consistent, high quality standards. In the United States, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education Accreditation (LCME) defines these standards and accredits programs that meet them. The LCME is a joint committee of the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).

To earn LCME accreditation, a program must pass a rigorous review process. For your application to have the best chance of success, you must understand the process and requirements. This guide will get you started.

Why should we get LCME accreditation?

Gaining LCME accreditation will benefit your institution in several ways:

• Funding eligibility: LCME accreditation unlocks federal grant opportunities, including Title VII funding from the U.S. Public Health Service.
• Enhanced recognition: LCME accreditation tells students, the government, and medical institutions they can trust your program to train quality doctors.
• Improved student outcomes: LCME standards ensure your program gives medical students the resources they need to succeed. Meeting these standards will improve your academic and professional outcomes for your students.
• Graduate licensure: Most states require LCME accreditation to license your graduates as doctors. Graduates can only take the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) if their institution has LCME accreditation.

What are the standards for LCME accreditation?

For your program to receive LCME accreditation, you must show that it meets the LCME’s 12 standards:

1. Mission, Planning, Organization, and Integrity: You have a mission statement and goals for the program and conduct ongoing planning to ensure it achieves them. Your institution has the effective organizational processes and structures a medical school needs. The faculty follows fair processes and values with integrity.
2. Leadership and Administration: You have enough qualified faculty leaders and administrators to achieve the program’s goals and manage it well.
3. Academic and Learning Environment: You situate your program in a respectful, diverse, and stimulating environment.
4. Faculty Preparation, Productivity, Participation, and Policies: Your faculty can achieve the program’s goals through their education, training, experience, continuing professional development, and supportive leadership skills.
5. Educational Resources and Infrastructure: Your institution has all the human, financial, informational, and material resources it needs to achieve the program’s goals.
6. Competencies, Curricular Objectives, and Curricular Design: You have defined learning objectives and competencies for your students to achieve and designed a program curriculum that prepares them to achieve these objectives and competencies.
7. Curricular Content: Your program’s curriculum has the breadth and depth to prepare students to enter any residency program and practice medicine.
8. Curricular Management, Evaluation, and Enhancement: You maintain and enhance the program’s quality and ensure students achieve key outcomes through program evaluation and revision.
9. Teaching, Supervision, Assessment, and Student and Patient Safety: Your program has a comprehensive and fair assessment plan. You protect students and patients by ensuring all teachers, supervisors, and assessors are prepared for their responsibilities.
10. Medical Student Selection, Assignment, and Progress: You publish admission requirements for applicants to your program. You have adequate policies and procedures for student selection, enrollment, and assignment.
11. Medical Student Academic Support, Career Advising, and Educational Records: You offer all students equal academic support and career advice to help them achieve program objectives and their career goals.
12. Medical Student Health Services, Personal Counseling, and Financial Aid Services: You offer health, counseling, and financial aid services to help all students achieve program goals.

How does the LCME accreditation process work?

The LCME applies this accreditation process when deciding whether to accredit your program:

1. You request an LCME Secretariat consultation.
2. You submit an application and pay the fee.
3. You submit a Data Collection Instrument (DCI) and program planning self-study within 18 months. The DCI is an LCME document requiring you to complete data tables for each element of each accreditation standard.
4. The LCME reviews the self-study and grants candidate status.
5. The LCME schedules and conducts a preliminary accreditation survey visit.
6. The LCME reviews the preliminary survey report.
7. The LCME grants preliminary accreditation.
8. You admit a charter class and complete a DCI for provisional accreditation.
9. The LCME conducts a survey visit for provisional accreditation. This is usually before the charter class reaches the midpoint of the curriculum’s second year.
10. The LCME reviews the provisional survey report.
11. The LCME grants provisional accreditation and requests status reports to address any minor noncompliance issues.
12. The LCME grants provisional accreditation.
13. You must complete a DCI for full accreditation and an institutional self-study.
14. The LCME conducts a full accreditation survey visit, usually when the charter class is early in its fourth year.
15. The LCME reviews the full survey report.
16. The LCME grants full accreditation and requests status reports to address any minor noncompliance issues.
17. The LCME conducts a follow-up full accreditation survey visit after five years, which the institution must pass to maintain full accreditation. A third visit follows within eight years of the second.

Failure to meet requirements at each of these stages can disqualify your program or require additional steps to progress toward accreditation.

5 Tips for gaining LCME accreditation

Improve your program’s chances of achieving LCME accreditation by:

• Developing an action plan: The LCME accreditation process is extensive. Ensure you’re familiar with all the requirements, steps, and standards. Create a comprehensive action plan that records workflows for each aspect of the process. Note who is responsible, what they need to do, and by when.
• Engaging stakeholders early: LCME standards require a system for ongoing enhancement of your program. Implement this from the outset by engaging students, faculty, patients, and other stakeholders to get their perspectives on the program and the needs it must meet.
• Conducting a thorough self-study: Your program planning and institutional self-studies are essential for gaining candidate status and full accreditation. Ensure these studies report all the evidence needed to establish your compliance with all LCME standards.
• Preparing for the survey visit: Along with your DCIs and self-studies, survey visits are vital to achieving preliminary, provisional, full, and maintained accreditation statuses. Prepare for these visits as far in advance as possible. The survey team should leave each visit persuaded that your program meets all LCME standards and continuously improves.
• Leveraging software: Accreditation preparation software accelerates your reporting, helps you collect evidence, and makes it easier to manage all the requirements of this multifaceted process.

Choose accreditation software from Watermark

Achieving LCME accreditation takes meticulous attention to standards and procedures. Keep track of everything in one place with the Watermark Educational Impact Suite (EIS). Our accreditation preparation software contains everything you need to:

• Gather, interpret, and present program data.
• Engage with your whole institution for continuous improvement.
• Centralize evidence and check it against accreditation requirements.
• Create compelling self-studies quickly and easily.

Request a demo of our accreditation software today.