| Overview of evaluation and accreditation program / Need and background for the program |  |
As JANPU program was adopted as a 2007 Research project on University evaluation and Accreditation commissioned by MEXT, the Committee for Creating Evaluation System on Nursing Programs in Universities conducted research on “Development and research of accreditation standards and systems for accreditation evaluation in nursing science - aimed at construction of a quality improving system for nursing programs in universities and graduate schools”.
This program aims at promoting recognition of the necessity for accreditation evaluation in nursing programs in universities and graduate schools through [1] development of accreditation items and standards, [2] evaluation trials and [3] spread of their results specialized in nursing education and research, while [4] learning U.S. system for accreditation of baccalaureate and graduate nursing education programs by a third-party organization, and constructing an effective and efficient accreditation system for nursing in Japan through its comparison with U.S. system, with the resulting establishment of a quality improving system in nursing education and research.
Fast-growing nursing programs in universities and graduate schools
With marked decrease in birth rate and increase in the elderly population, the health promotion, medical care and welfare in Japan face increasingly severer environments such as progress in medical technology, aging of patients, increased severity of diseases and shortening of hospital stay due to increased medical cost. It is crucial for providing effective medical care based on patients’ need in the midst of such difficulties, to secure high-quality nursing staff.
Nursing programs in universities and graduate schools have been growing rapidly in recent years.
The number of nursing programs in universities was only 11 in 1989, but increased year after year to reach 84 in 2000, and 157 in 2006. With this change, the number of nurses to be educated in colleges (in a single year) was 539 in 1989, but it grew to 12,223 in 2007. The total number of nursing students in all curricula in 1 fiscal year is about 50,000. In other words, the college graduates who made up only 1% of total nursing staff now account for more than 20% of nurses.
With increase in the number of nursing programs in universities, the percentage of college-educated nurses will predictably increase further. Under these circumstances, there is a pressing need for ensuring a good quality of nursing education in nursing programs in universities.
In the complicated modern society, science that resolves the practical problems is gaining its relative weight. Nursing is a practical science, and the level of its scholarship will exert a great influence over the quality of practical nursing and future state of science.
Need for evaluation specialized in nursing profession
While nursing education in universities and graduate schools has gained importance in Japan, education and research have been just started in many colleges and graduate schools, and the standards and system for evaluating their quality have not been established yet.
However, to develop professional nurses who can provide a high-quality nursing based on patients’ need as well as researchers who can provide evidence for practice, it is necessary to establish a clear and universal set of standards for evaluating education and research in the nursing profession and to build the system for evaluation. It is also important on this occasion to offer a reliable method for guaranteeing the transparency of the evaluation results, to ensure understanding not only by people concerned with nursing but the recipients of service including patients and people in the other fields.
Today, universities and graduate schools are obligated to undergo accreditation evaluation by accredited organizations and regularly evaluated. However, since accreditation evaluation is concerned with a total institution, accreditation focusing on a professional field is difficult to obtain. Particularly in universities, nursing is frequently not established as an independent field meriting a department or a course, so that accreditation evaluation for institutions does not always reflect the actual state of nursing education and research.
Thus, it is necessary to construct a system of accreditation specialized to the nursing profession.
