The Agency for Public Health Education Accreditation (APHEA) was launched in 2011 following over 20 years of the development work led by ASPHER. Founding members include: ASPHER, European Health Management Association (EHMA), European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), European Public Health Association (EUPHA) and Eurohealthnet.
Website: http://www.aphea.be
Quality Improvement & Development Service
As a joint activity, APHEA and ASPHER offer a Quality Improvement & Development Service which is a quality improvement tool (rather than Quality Assurance) for schools and programmes who are either unsure whether they'll pass full accreditation or are aware that they are some way off and wish to use the criteria and expertise within APHEA and ASPHER to help them develop toward the standards. The latter of these is especially the case for developing schools and programmes, which is very similar to the use of the peer review within earlier development programmes in which many of the reviewers were involved. The QIDS process was developed in 2013 through funding from the European Union and was part of the PERFEQT project (Public health Education Reform For Equity in Quality of Training).
QIDS is a bespoke process which involves the schools and programmes being visited by team of experts who will review the applicant and if required, propose a series of activities or measures designed to raise standards as well as potential implementation schedules. The reviewers will also help schools and programmes understand some of the obstacles they may face along the way and how to tackle these. If the applicant is deemed to be up to the required standard they will be informed of how to approach the accreditation process.
This process does not require self-evaluation documentation but teams do require some basic background information of the school or programme for orientation before their arrival. Some schools and programmes may only wish for the site visit and report where as others may wish for more of a long-term support. As such the pricing structure for this activity is bespoke and will require liaison with APHEA.
Schools and programmes will be visited by a 2 to 3 person team of experts depending on the anticipated workload. The review can equally take 2 to 3 days. Upon consultation there can be follow-up missions organised.