When a nursing operation's leader at Emory Healthcare, part of Emory University in Atlanta, launched a policy management initiative, she thought the project would involve consolidating an estimated 500 disparate policies. "Without a unifying way to keep consistency and keep reasonableness among the policies and consolidate them, you end up with chaos and inefficiency," says Bill Dracos, chief business practice improvement (BPI) officer at the university, whose team was brought in to assist.

As it turns out, the estimate was way off. The number of policies was more like 15,000.

So over the course of three years, BPI administrators helped the health care system identify, categorize and eventually consolidate their policies. That desire to bring order to the myriad policies at the health care system—and later the university—is gaining traction nationwide. Today, a growing number of colleges and universities are instituting policy management efforts to manage risk, enhance communication and transparency, maintain consistency, uphold accountability, and ensure that clear, well-organized policies are readily available to guide decision-making. An active U.S.-based organization is even dedicated to the discipline: the Association of College and University Policy Administrators (ACUPA). It includes members from 190 institutions in five countries.

That desire to bring order to the myriad policies at the health care system—and later the university—is gaining traction nationwide. Today, a growing number of colleges and universities are instituting policy management efforts to manage risk, enhance communication and transparency, maintain consistency, uphold accountability, and ensure that clear, well-organized policies are readily available to guide decision-making. An active U.S.-based organization is even dedicated to the discipline: the Association of College and University Policy Administrators (ACUPA). It includes members from 190 institutions in five countries.

Policy management process tends to involve a set of critical components. Following are six related steps for administrators on a policy cleanup mission.

Making it easier to manage, align and produce policies is a significant undertaking, so project scope and expectations must be clearly defined at the outset. What does the institution hope to achieve? Who should lead the effort? How many policies are actually involved?

Dracos recommends determining whether the effort will address only central, campuswide policies or also consider those specific to individual departments and units.

Now is also the right time to create a standard definition of a policy and how it differs from a procedure, form or job aid.

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