한국 치위생학 교육 평가인증제도의 필요성

Abstract

The increasing cross-border mobility of dental school or dental hygiene students, educators, practitioners, programs and providerstakes challenges for existing national quality assurance and accreditation frameworks and bodies, as well as for the systems forrecognizing foreign qualifications. The new dental hygiene accreditation system was introduced to encourage the improvement ofdental hygiene programs, to ensure the quality of education and, most of all, to establish an internationally compatible system ofevaluation and accreditation. The accreditation procedure takes 1 year to complete. The result of the accreditation is released afterevaluation via self-study report, site visit, preliminary draft report, responses from the institution and the results from the conciliationand review committees. The result from the accreditation procedure is either ‘accreditation’ or ‘no accreditation’. Accredited schoolsreceive one of several statuses following the evaluation. These are next general review, interim report and interim visit or suspension. Dental healthcare quality is not improved instantaneously, but instead gradually through continuous communication within thedental field. For this accreditation system to be successful, the following are essential: the accreditation agency should adopt hygieneeducation accreditation; it needs to become financially independent and managed efficiently; the autonomy and regulationssurrounding the system need to be balanced; the professionalism of the system is ensured; and the dental field which includes notonly dental program, but also hygiene program, needs to play an active role in the operation of the system.