Annual Program Assessment Report (APAR)
CAHIIM monitors program performance, outcomes and changes for continuous quality improvement. The Annual Program Assessment Report (APAR) is the online system used to collect data from programs.
To maintain Continuing Accreditation status, CAHIIM Accredited programs are required to provide an Annual Program Assessment Report (APAR) using the APAR Online System. The importance of completing the APAR is not only that it is required by CAHIIM Accreditation Standards, but also provides fundamental data useful to you, your administration, students and the public.
APAR Online Process
APAR Open Date
APAR will opened in 2024 on January 31,2024 to collect data from each CAHIIM accredited Health Information Management and Health Informatics program. Annual APAR reporting encompasses a reporting cycle that begins August 1 and ends July 31 and it is always one year behind to give programs ample time to collect data for the report. For example, APAR 2024 collected general data for the academic year cycle that started August 1, 2022 and ended July 31,2023.
APAR Closure Date
The APAR system closed for all programs at 11:59pm on May 31, 2031. Failure to complete the APAR may result in the programs being placed on Administrative Probation until the report is satisfactorily submitted. The change in accreditation status will also be recorded in the program profile in the CAHIIM Program Directory.
APAR Resources and Help
We emphasize the importance of reviewing the Instructions and collecting all data and materials using the APAR Data Element Checklist that is sent to all programs. The checklist will describe data collected and identify data fields that are new for each APAR.
APAR User’s Guide: Section I: Getting Started describes how to access and navigate through the System Sections and functionality. Other User Guide sections can be found in the APAR system, in the Resources tab.
APAR Data Report
The CAHIIM APAR data report contains Excel worksheets that can be viewed and used to create reports for HIM undergraduate programs, with data collected from APAR reporting.
The APAR Workbook includes a description of the worksheets, as well as worksheets with program data that can be aggregated or sorted by education level, region, enrollments, graduates, certification scores, curriculum, credit hours and other data fields. The workbook contains four reporting periods – APAR 2017, APAR 2018, APAR 2019 and APAR 2020.
Each program reporting to APAR has been given a CAHIIM APAR program code to de-identify the program in this workbook. This program code is not to be confused with the Education Program Code (EPC). If a program director is interested in finding out the APAR code for their program, please submit a request via your .edu email address along with your EPC code to CAHIIM staff at info@cahiim.org and we will send you your APAR program code.
HIM APAR Dashboard
Using the publicly-available CAHIIM HIM Annual Program Assessment Report (APAR) dataset, Dr. Susan H Fenton and Tabbitha Fagin, from the University of Texas School of Biomedical Informatics, have developed a dashboard to help program directors discover how to compare their programs to others.