Profile of nurse anesthesia programs.

Over time, the Council on Accreditation of Nurse Anesthesia Educational Programs (COA) and the AANA Education and Research Department have recognized the need to gather information significant to nurse anesthesia programs. The need to create a formalized mechanism to gather and analyze information has also been identified as the profession has grown. COA and the Education and Research Department have responded to this need by creating a database and a reporting mechanism in order to present information to the Assembly of School Faculty at its annual meeting. The information will be summarized in this article, which is the first formal vehicle of disseminating the data.