Nursing: CCNE and ACEN Accreditation + Exxat Prism: Best Practices

This webinar, hosted by Exxat as the second installment in a two-part nursing series, focused on how nursing programs can leverage Exxat Prism to streamline preparation for CCNE and ACEN accreditation. Led by Dr. Randolph Rasch (former Dean of the College of Nursing at Michigan State University) and Dr. Vishakha Bhave (VP of Customer Experience at Exxat), the session walked attendees through a structured crosswalk of CCNE and ACEN standards, showing where Exxat Prism collects evidence for each standard, what operational workflows feed that evidence, and which out-of-the-box and custom reports can be pulled at any point in time. 
 

View Presentation Deck PDF

 

Key Takeaways:

• Continuous quality improvement is critical. Rather than scrambling to gather evidence during the self-study year, programs that use Exxat Prism to collect data continuously can pull real-time reports mid-semester, end-of-semester, or end-of-year. By the time the summative self-study arrives, the analysis is already done — the only remaining work is writing the narrative. Site visitors also actively look for evidence that CQI is a habit, not a one-time scramble.

   

• The platform is a powerful tool, not a template — "gold in, gold out." Exxat Prism is highly customizable and flexible, which means the quality of evidence depends on how thoughtfully programs design their forms, evaluations, and rubrics. Forms should be built to actually capture what the program wants to demonstrate and because mid-cycle changes are disruptive, programs should invest time upfront in designing forms with the end goal in mind.

   

• Real-time flags on licensure and credentialing prevent costly mishaps. Exxat Prism's placement clearance dashboard and preceptor profile reports proactively surface expired or expiring licenses, certifications, and affiliation agreements — giving administrators time to follow up before a student is placed with an out-of-compliance preceptor or sent to a site with a lapsed agreement. 

   

• Strong evidence is holistic — collect it from multiple stakeholders in multiple places. For standards like interprofessional education, preceptor quality, and program effectiveness, the most defensible evidence comes from triangulating data across student evaluations, faculty assessments, preceptor feedback, site assessments, surveys, and competency tracking. Sprinkling related questions throughout different forms (e.g., an IPE question in both site evaluations and preceptor evaluations) builds a multi-source story that's hard for site visitors to question.

Your Presenters:

Dr. Randolph Rasch, Professor and former 9th Dean of the College of Nursing at Michigan State University and Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), brings over thirty years of experience teaching across BSN, MSN, DNP, and PhD programs, along with extensive professional service including the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Board of Directors and the AACN/AONL Taskforce on Academic-Practice Partnerships. He has led nursing program accreditation reviews and program evaluations at multiple universities nationwide, making him uniquely positioned to discuss how nursing programs can strengthen outcomes tracking, meet accreditation standards, and leverage tools like Exxat Prism to streamline essentials mapping and clinical education management."

Dr. Vishakha Bhave, PhD, our Vice President of Customer Experience has over 17 years of teaching, service, and scholarship experience. Her academic background includes roles such as Associate Professor at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine School of Pharmacy. Having served on curriculum, assessment and accreditation self study committees, she is able to marry academia needs with product design. She currently leads the strategic direction of Exxat products, ensuring robust support and product fit to enable management of all aspects of higher education programs, including student success and accreditation.