Meeting & Agendas

Meeting was called to order at 5:58 p.m. by Committee Chair, Manuel Vielma. Estrella thanked everyone for coming and provided information on the college's purpose of the Advisory Board.

The next opportunity for training will be Summer 2016. Estrella asked the committee to send her topics that they would like to see covered. Program Challenges & Opportunities Estrella again told committee members how much the faculty appreciates their support and discussed how limited our service area is and how this keeps us limited on our fieldwork to the counties in our service area. Pat Recek gave a brief overview of the results of the bond election and what that will mean for health sciences and the rest of the college. She provided information about the math accelerator at the new Highland Campus and talked a little about the expansion to take place at the Round Rock Campus and Highland Campus in the health science arena including a new simulation area that employers in health sciences will be able to utilize. She also mentioned the new Vet Tech program at Elgin. Pat congratulated the faculty on all their hard with the standards review and mentioned that the responses were very thorough. Karoline announced that a new staff member, Stephanie Thayer, has been hired to support the program. Manual Vielma closed the meeting at 7:20 p.m. with thanks to the committee for their participation that evening.

The latest self-study was completed and submitted by the program faculty on December 2nd. In the process we looked at what we do, what opportunities are out there and how we do certain processes. Along with that we did a curriculum review to comply with the State of Texas' new 60 hour mandate which will be discussed later in the meeting. Accreditors from ACOTE will be visiting the program March 2-4, 2015. They will want to meet with current and former students along with fieldwork educators level I & II, and employers. Estrella asked that everyone review their calendars to see if they will be available during that time.

Estrella explained that a few adjustments were made to the goals and objectives to reflect semester to semester progression. They did this with the idea of retaining more students (we do a great job of our students passing the licensure exam). NBCOT exams are tracked by calendar year. However, we are still tracking our pass rate by our student cohort. All of our benchmarks are currently being met. During the curriculum redesign, one of the areas that was looked at closely to help with retention was how the course load was distributed. With the redesign, we have made each of the semesters more balanced. Estrella also explained the biggest challenge that the departments face is ESL students. They continue to look for ways to better support these students and help to retain them. A question was brought up about whether students voluntarily withdraw. Estrella answered that the majority of students withdraw due to life reasons. Last year she shared that three students were lost very quickly in the beginning of the semester because of this. Estrella also shared that second year is the biggest academic struggle for students as they get more into the clinical.

Estrella shared information showing our program outcomes. Our pass rate on the NBCOT exam is 100% for the last two years for all the students that graduated. However, our graduation rate is only at 80%. Compared to the national figures, ACC students are still above the national pass rate.

Estrella then shared the data concerning applications for the last six years. The program has increased the applications received from 36 applications in 2009-2011 cohort to 98 applications in the 2014-2016 cohort. She also mentioned the opportunity this past year to try 21 students after looking at lab and fieldwork availability. Unfortunately, the 21st student dropped the course before the second week of classes. Pat Recek, Interim Dean of Health Sciences, asked about expansion at the Round Rock Campus due to the successful bond election. Estrella explained that the biggest challenge to expansion would be fieldwork opportunities. Currently we have to work with St. Augustine, MOT program also needing clinical spots and our area is limited to our service district. There is also a new program opening in Waco. There was also some discussion of the students affected by the closing of the school in El Paso. Estrella mentioned that St. Augustine will need fieldwork spots every quarter. There are also limits to the available therapists that can help with fieldwork because of clinician mobility. There is not the commitment from semester to semester at the same field site. Enrollment is therefore limited by this challenge. Estrella encouraged committee members though to keep eyes open for new facilities and find contacts for new places especially in long-term care.

Estrella presented information on the proposed 60 hour degree plan as mandated by Senate Bill 497. The faculty reviewed the learning objectives of all the courses and looked at state and college guidelines along with ACOTE standards. The faculty feels very positive about the changes as they have been well thought out. Elimination of some corequisites such as medical terminology but expanded in other areas such as Pathophysiology that will include modules on medical terminology. Another course that was eliminated was Abnormal Behavior but more contact time was added into the Mental Health course. A time limit on Introduction to Psychology was also added to ensure students are current. Since a math and science course is not required by the college, the math course was eliminated and the program was able to retain the Human Growth and Development course. The speech course is now also specified after a review of the course objectives for each course. Finally the Humanities course was narrowed to only accepting the Ethics course from the Philosophy department. The only OTHA course (Physical Function) that was eliminated was covered in two other courses. The semesters were also made more balanced to help with student retention. Estrella stated that the faculty would love feedback from the Advisory Board. Estrella then shared information on the new admission criteria showing both the transition year requirements and what will be required in the 2016 group. The biggest change for 2016 will likely be the addition of the HOBET exam. The program is challenged because we can't assess reading and writing skills as part of the admission criteria and it is noted these are areas students struggle to successfully complete the coursework. Information on the HOBET exam was given to the committee to review. What has not been decided at this point is the """"""""passing"""""""" score. The program is open to suggestions and will be talking to the Physical Therapy Assistant program to see what their numbers have shown. Estrella told the committee that last year a tenth of a point was all that separated applicants that were able to get into the program from applicants that were excluded. The essay that students submit has now been redesigned also to cover their observation time. Advisory Committee members mentioned that maybe it would be good to have students observe at two different sites with different focus so that they can get a broader picture. Discussion was made of whether to increase the number of hours or just make two different settings required, no final decision made at this point.

This year homehealth was added for the first time through Little Engine. All students also were able to go to Dell Children's Hospital. Both experiences were well received by the students and they hope to be able to do this again with the next group. Students were also able to spend a day doing hippotherapy. Feedback from the class is that level 1 is very integrative with what is being discussed in classes. Estrella mentioned that these special rotations are thanks to help from committee members. Estrella also reviewed the new Psycho-Social fieldwork that was implemented at Lyons Garden and Goodwill. Used MOHO to conduct interviews about training. The students then came up with the themes that emerged and gave that to Goodwill for internal programming and leadership development. Goodwill has already indicated that they have more projects of this sort that they would like to have next year's group complete. YMCA has also connected with faculty with a similar program that works with decreasing the social isolation of a target population with dementia and Alzheimer's. Faculty hopes to expand and do again next year. Some key points that came out of the self-study were to make sure that we collaborate with fieldwork providers. Therefore we have updated to a new fieldwork system with data forms that will be online. As fieldwork sites are being identified, developed, and requests for placements being made; objectives will be reviewed and if site specific objectives identified, that will be updated in the fieldwork data forms. Faculty will be updating the paperwork. The priority that was identified most is that students need structure when they come to fieldwork to know what they need to do.

New faculty member is Amy Anderson, COTA. She was introduced to the committee members.