Meeting & Agendas

Fred Alvarado, committee chair, opened the meeting at 5:55 p.m. and welcomed everyone. Fred reviewed the purpose of the advisory committee and then turned the meeting over to Estrella.

No Changes. See slide from handouts.

As part of the strategic planning, a SWOT analysis will provide valuable information. This will provide us with some historical, present, and future information. Strengths • Prepared students for fieldwork • Students know how to ask questions • Leadership/administrative support of Health Sciences • Faculty Engagement • Resources at ACC (Technology) • Relationships within the community • Open to non-traditional settings for students (YMCA) • Student exposure to TOTA (various settings) • Faculty involvement • Outcomes – Student successes • Experiential learning • Faculty changing curriculum • Student Professionalism Weaknesses • Space in lab; limits student acceptance • Size of program • Obtaining enough fieldwork size (sites?) • Documentation of CPT codes especially electronic • Time management of students • Fieldwork placement limited to ACC service area • Use of Evidence Based Practice Opportunities • Electronic documentation in the works • Wiggle room to expand service area • Webinar – Fieldwork Educators could expand for students and practitioner • Non-traditional sites (aging in place); new sites around Austin (Activity Directors) • Home Health placements o Student o Stipend o Waiver o In 1 or 2 facilities • Telehealth • Medical School • Interprofessional Education • Focus on groups and/or populations in community • Area of study Threats • Changes in Reimbursement • Healthcare reform • Other OT programs • Changes to BA entry point • Lower applicant pools • Cost of education • Admission requirements • Fieldwork sites o Not enough FWE hours o Employment hours • Guns on campuses • Full-time work post graduation

No other questions raised. Meeting adjourned at 7:11 p.m.

This year's survey will also include questions from the Department of Education about the average student debt and also the number and percent of students from low income families. The survey is due in February and we are working with the Dean of Health Sciences to get some of this information. We don't normally send our post graduate survey until March. Estrella discussed this with ACOTE about the change in the timeline and how this does not match our strategic plan. We will try to get all the data that we can though in the short time crunch. Other news from ACOTE was a vote to have a Bachelor's degree in OTA. The standards are being developed and we will explore that in more depth when it unfolds and bring feedback at the meeting in 2017.

We continue to do well on all of the goals. We did not meeting goal #3 and we are monitoring goals 2 and 7. In 2015, we started with 20 students and lost 5 in the first semester due to psychosocial issues. In 2016 we brought this back up. Our graduation rate will gradually improve. In our survey of our graduates six months after graduation, they are reporting that the market is saturated. Students are reporting that they were taking PRN work. We are hearing this more and more from our 2016 graduates. Estrella queried the committee to see if any are also observing this. Marcia Desy asked about the Employer Surveys and where COTAs are being hired. This question is not currently being asked but Estrella indicated that we could add this to the suvey. Macy Shepis said that she has heard from some trying to make a job transition to to Medicaid budget cuts and she is hearing about pediatric losses. Michelle McCarty also brought up that they are staffing differently and that they are going slow and not using PRN. Michelle also encourages students to just get a job and not specify too much to a certain field. Estrella commented that this will take looking at a little more and that maybe we need to do a better job of informing our students of job realities. Michelle also noted that they are not necessarily going to find full-time but maybe 30 hours. Fred mentioned that he sees many employees that have multiple PRN jobs.

Estrella then highlighted the students' progression from semester to semester and how they are mapping their learning with outcomes from semester to semester. The program now has a much better structure to track information. The next three year cycle will give us some good data with the addition of the 2016 cohort being the first with the 60 credit hour plan. Estrella and the rest of the faculty are excited about the more structured process. Enrollment this past year saw an interesting decrease in the number of applicants. Factors that have been mentioned as possible causes are the additional cost of the TEAS test. We will continue to monitor enrollments. This past year we decided to enroll 22 students as a test of our capabilities. We are using 9309 as our lab and teaching in other rooms at the college. We are using computerized testing to help with evaluation and to help with identifying areas that need more coverage. We have also increased faculty in the labs. Each lab now has 2 instructors to increase feedback to the students. Students have responded well to this change. We are also looking at adding one more adjunct due to all of the Department Chair duties. Students have been very flexible and responded well even though there are lots of changes going on. Fred question the previous enrollment numbers versus the increased and Estrella responded that we are piloting this and seeing if we want to make this permanent. A question was raised about having bonus points for any volunteer hours in excess of 20. Estrella said that this can be reviewed. Macy asked about the 7 that dropped and if there was anything in their hours that showed a trend. Macy suggested doing more hours so that they understand what they are getting into. Michelle suggested looking at more than one site. Fred asked about the interview process. Estrella replied that the college is open to letting us do this. However, the OTA faculty think this is too subjective and afraid of open records request. Estrella will look at multiple sites and other criteria. There was some additional discussion on the essay and the questions used. Estrella mentioned that we will be tracking TEAS data against success rate and see if there is any correlation. The second year students are challenged by the reading competency and they did not take the TEAS.

100% of the students are in the new 60 hour plan.

This is helping faculty with giving better feedback to the students and providing them with valuable analytics on student progress. The program will be tracking that for the next few years. This helps the students to know what and why they got a question wrong before they leave the testing room.

There have been no changes.

A suggestion was made to change the location of the fieldwork educator to the worksite versus on the campus. A question was raised about what is covered and the training. Estrella is able to do the training at either location. She asked the committee members to pass along to staff that she is available for the training. Pat Recek mentioned that there might be some options for doing this online and working with the instructional designers. It was also mentioned that CE credits could be awarded. Estrella will be looking into this.