Table 2.

Timeline.

Date	Participants	Milestone
September 2017	Exploratory meeting at Thomas Jefferson University of 18 North American academic leaders from the USA and Canada and CAHME executives	Programs agreed to develop accreditation process for HQS graduate programs.
November 2017	HQS Founding Members	Six committees are created with focus as follows: (1) “Certification Standards” committee serves to develop standards that are an interim step to accreditation (2) “Competency Development” committee focuses on the development of core competencies required by graduates (3) “Outreach” focuses on communications (4) “Accreditation Standards” develops the standards and criteria for accreditation, using CAHME’s standards and criteria for health care management as a basis (5) “Executive Committee” consists of the chairs of each of the committees, to foster communication and to prepare materials for the “General Committee” (6) “General Committee” consists of all Founding programs and CAHME to approve the committee work
	NAHQ	NAHQ joins the initiative to help provide logistical support for the process. NAHQ becomes a critical partner for helping to spread the word about the need for accreditation in programs
June 2018–December 2018	Competency Development Committee	Agreed upon definition of quality and patient safety for the purpose of accreditation of graduate programs; proposed and developed content domains; identified two knowledge, skill, and attitude components for each domain; wrote examples of two measurable competencies derived from those components
June 2018–February 2019	Accreditation Standards Committee	Reviewed and revised CAHME existing standards for health care management programs for HQS programs, incorporated content domains into proposed HQS accreditation standards
May 2019	CAHME Board of Directors	The CAHME Board of Directors approves the Criteria and Standards for Accreditation for Healthcare Quality and Safety
April 2020	CAHME Board of Directors	HQS Accreditation development committee structure is terminated

Abbreviations: CAHME, the Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education; HQS, healthcare quality and safety; NAHQ, The National Association of Healthcare Quality