Accreditation of Entry-to-Practice Nursing Programs in the Ingram School of Nursing

The School of Nursing at McGill University has had a long history in relation to the accreditation of nursing programs in Canada. In 1972, during the presidency of Elizabeth Logan (Director of the School of Nursing, 1963 – 1971), the Canadian Association of University Schools of Nursing (CAUSN) (name changed in 2002 to Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing – CASN) became the official accrediting agency for Canadian university programs in nursing. An Accreditation Standards Committee was established at that time and included several members with McGill affiliations:

• Susan French (BN’65; Director 2001 – 2005, Emeritus Professor), Committee Chair (1973 – 1986)
• F. Moyra Allen (BN’48, Assistant Professor, Acting Director 1982 – 1983), Committee Member (1973 – 1985)
• Peggy-Anne Field (BN’64), Committee Member (1974 – 1982)
• Carolyn Pepler (Assistant Professor, Acting Director, 2001), Committee Member (1974 – 1986), Committee Chair (1986 – 1987)

In 1974, McGill University was one of five universities (along with Dalhousie, McMaster, Manitoba, and Lakehead) to volunteer in testing the criteria and instruments being investigated by the CAUSN Accreditation Standards Committee.

In 1977, F. Moyra Allen published the book Evaluation of Educational Programmes in Nursing in response to an identified need for guidance in planning and evaluating educational programs in nursing. The World Health Organization, appreciating the global nature of this need, funded this work. Allen’s seminal ideas laid the foundation for the accreditation program that CAUSN would later adopt. “A critical appraisal of existing programs of accreditation, including that developed by the National League for Nursing in the United States, led to the decision to base the program of accreditation on the model developed by Allen in 1977” (CAUSN, 1986). Dr. Allen’s work identified the three foundational concepts of relevance (the extent to which the purposes, goals, and objectives of a program reflect a response to the major trends in society that impact on the heath needs, present and future, of the larger community), relatedness (the extent to which the parts of a program support and build on other parts, thereby promoting the achievements of program goals), and accountability (the extent to which a program teaches the student that the primary responsibility in nursing is to the client) that continue to guide the current accreditation program more than thirty years later. CAUSN subsequently added the concept of uniqueness to the accreditation program standards whereby the extent to which a program capitalized on its unique characteristics within its particular setting would be assessed as part of the accreditation process.

The development of this national and voluntary accreditation review process was not an easy one and “it took CAUSN 15 developmental years before it would apply the process” (Bouchard & Kirkwood, 1992, p. 52). Dr. Susan French (personal communication) attested to the many meetings that were held in Dr. Allen’s home, almost always on weekends. It was in May 1987, under the Presidency of Alice Baumgart (MSc’64), that the CAUSN accreditation process was launched.

In 1989, McGill’s B.Sc.(N) program was among the first Canadian nursing programs to voluntarily undergo an accreditation visit by CAUSN. Prof. Margaret Hooton led the process and the School prepared the accreditation self-study document outlining how it self-assessed (on a rating scale of 1 to 4) its ability to meet the 75 indicators of the accreditation evaluation criteria. The School was successful in this endeavour and was accredited for the first time. Director Dr. Mary-Ellen Jeans wrote “We received accreditation for 7 years and high ratings on all of the criteria…they were struck by the degree of integration of the curriculum and the quality of the graduates. They also were impressed by the degree to which the faculty in the School were willing and able to sustain a strong commitment to education in the face of limited resources …were dismayed at the state of our equipment and lack of support and technical resources” (1989-90 School of Nursing Annual Report). The B.Sc.(N) program has remained fully accredited since 1989.

Ever striving to ensure that the School maintained standards of excellence, the Bachelor of Nursing program underwent voluntary accreditation in 2000 subsequent to its reopening in 1998. This was at the same time as the B.Sc.(N) program was due to be reaccredited. The 2010 accreditation used the ‘revised 2005’ CASN accreditation program whereby the Educational Unit and Educational Programs were assessed separately with decisions rendered for each. Given that many of McGill’s Direct Entry M.Sc.(A) graduates were seeking licensure in Ontario and the fact that licensure in that province required that the nurse have graduated from an accredited nursing program, the School sought accreditation for this program in 2012. CASN resolved that this program could fall under the existing accreditation program as it was an entry-to-practice program (albeit at the graduate level – and the only one of its kind in Canada).

The following table summarizes key dates in the School of Nursing’s accreditation timeline.

* CASN first offering of accreditation

At the graduate level, in 2008, the Neonatology Nurse Practitioner Program received the first ever accreditation review of a nurse practitioner program in Quebec as well as in Canada. This review was conducted by the Ordre des infirmières et infirmiers du Quebec and the Collège de médecins du Québec. Since that original accreditation, all NP program streams have received full accreditation. CASN piloted a Nurse Practitioner Accreditation Program in 2020 and the Ingram School of Nursing will most certainly seek to demonstrate that it can meet these national standards of excellence!

Current Nursing faculty members continue in the footsteps of our former leaders in supporting the CASN accreditation process: Madeleine Buck (Board of Accreditation Member 2002 – 2007, Chair Bureau of Accreditation 2007 – 2009, Bureau of Accreditation Ex Officio 2009 – 10, Co-Chair Advisory Committee on Accreditation Policies 2010 – 2014, reviewer); Josee Bonneau (reviewer and currently a member of the Advisory Committee on Accreditation Policy), and Annie Chevrier (reviewer and currently on the Bureau of Accreditation).

While always a challenge to prepare for and participate in an accreditation review and site visit, the Ingram School of Nursing continues to strive for academic excellence within the academic programs through continual program evaluation and review.

Story submitted by: Madeleine Buck

Cited sources:

CAUSN (1986). Accreditation program. Canadian Association of University Schools of Nursing. Ottawa, ON: CAUSN.

Kirkwood, R. & Bouchard, J. (1992). “Take counsel with one another” – A beginning history of the Canadian Association of University Schools of Nursing, 1942-1992. Kingston, ON: Brown and Martin Limited.