Questions a DO Program Should Ask Before Choosing an Education Platform

The last time your college chose an education platform, the feature list looked complete. Then the person who knew where the COCA files lived left, and the spreadsheets were still there. That is a diligence failure: the team compared features instead of asking whether the records that run a college of osteopathic medicine would survive the next COCA review, the next annual report, and the next departure.

This guide is the operational list for DO deans and for the curriculum and clinical leaders who sit with them. It is not a vendor scorecard, and it is not a twenty-four-item list padded to match an old brochure title. Each heading is a question your leadership meeting can put a name on. The first two sentences under it are the direct answer. A downloadable checklist (branded Excel, with a plain-CSV alternative) is linked at the end as a meeting handoff, not as the system of record.

Verified September 1, 2026 against COCA. Sources at the end.

If you need the edition clock itself (the two binders, the comparison, the named-owner calendar), use the companion Evidence article Meeting COCA Accreditation Standards. If you need the capability walkthrough, use the site's Medical Schools page. If you are already comparing named platforms, use the comparison guide. This page stays on the questions a dean should be able to answer before anyone talks about software.

How to use these questions

Ask them of your own operation first. A vendor conversation that starts with "can you map to COCA" is a feature tour. A conversation that starts with "show me last cycle's reporting tables and this year's COMLEX-USA outcome files, in the system, with the people who own them" is diligence.

Put a name next to each question on the checklist. If the name is "whoever ran it last time," the checklist has a gap, not an owner.

A 30-second check. Open the tracker from your last COCA review. If the header still says 2023, and your next review is after February 1, 2027, that is the first row on the checklist, and it is due this week, not in visit year.

Where do last cycle's standards package, reporting tables, and COCA correspondence actually live?

They should live in one access-controlled place that the current accreditation lead can open without calling someone who left. If they live in a personal drive, an email thread, or a folder named for a year, the next review starts as archaeology.

COCA accreditation runs on named documents. A platform conversation that cannot point at those artifacts, as your college actually produced them, is not yet a platform conversation.

Which edition of the continuing standards governs our next review?

The 2026 edition, if the review is conducted after February 1, 2027. COCA approved the 2026 Continuing Standards, and a matching new-and-developing edition, on December 4, 2025. The documents took effect July 1, 2026, for the 2026-2027 academic year, and they apply to colleges with pre-accreditation or accreditation status.

Your school's actual next-review date lives in your most recent COCA correspondence, and that date, not a typical interval, is the one to plan against. Confirm it, then pull the matching files from osteopathic.org. A tracking spreadsheet built on the 2023 continuing edition will silently break.

Are we working from the continuing binder or the new-and-developing binder?

One or the other, never a mix. The 2026 Continuing Accreditation Standards govern currently accredited colleges. The 2026 New and Developing Accreditation Standards govern applicant and pre-accredited programs, including candidate-status applications. Each edition ships with its own reporting tables.

Ask a vendor which binder their demo is built on. If they cannot say, they are showing you a generic medical-school map, not your process.

Have we diffed the published 2023-to-2026 comparison against our tracker?

You have if the comparison document is the first row of the tracker, with a name on it, and every added or moved table-of-contents row has an owner. You have not if someone "knows what changed" and the spreadsheet still uses last edition's element list.

COCA published a comparison of the 2023 and 2026 continuing standards, and a matching comparison for the new-and-developing edition, on the standards listing (page last updated July 2026). That document is the first row, not a later one. Do not treat this guide's table-of-contents pointers as a complete diff.

A few table-of-contents rows worth flagging in a diff. Confirm current numbering on osteopathic.org, because this list is a pointer, not a substitute:

Do not treat that list as complete. The comparison document is.

Who is the named accreditation lead, and which elements have named owners?

There is a named lead with authority to escalate to the dean, and every element in the edition that will govern the next review has a named owner who can actually produce the evidence. If the lead is somebody's fifth job, or the owner list is "the committee," the timeline is fiction.

People → Process → Platform. Named owners run the 2026 edition clock as a standing process in the platform. Write the owner list down. Update it when people leave.

The 2026 edition is organized as 12 accreditation standards, each broken into numbered elements. The element is the unit a review actually tests. Standards 1 through 11 must be met for full accreditation. Standard 12 applies only when COCA serves as the institutional accreditor.

Which table-of-contents rows are marked CORE, and who owns those?

The 2026 table of contents flags some elements as CORE. The introduction is explicit: a miss on any core element is a miss on that standard. Confirm current CORE flags on osteopathic.org; this page does not restate the list.

The operational test is ownership, not software. If a CORE row has no producer, you will discover that in the months before the visit. Ask a vendor to show element-level assignment and due dates as a living list, not a slide. Do not ask them to certify CORE status. Your college files its own reports.

Can we show curriculum design and management from current records?

Yes, from the records you keep while you teach, or no, only after a special export project. A mapping you start when the visit is scheduled is a project, not a map. In the 2026 table of contents, Curriculum Design and Management sits at 6.1. If the answer is "we will map it when the visit is scheduled," you are buying a project, not a platform.

Ask the vendor to show coverage and gaps from your courses and sessions, with a person approving the links, not from a folder of last year's PDFs. Confirm current numbering on osteopathic.org. This is a pointer, not a substitute for the element.

Can we show osteopathic core competencies on the same map as the rest of the curriculum?

You can if the competencies live in the same record as the courses and sessions, with named owners. You cannot if osteopathic instruction is a side spreadsheet that gets merged in visit year. The 2026 table of contents titles 6.4 Osteopathic Core Competencies. That is not the same row as a brochure that still says 6.4 means curriculum delivery.

A list of competencies is not a map. Ask to see one course, one lab, and one clinical experience, tagged to the competencies your college actually named, with the person who approved the links. If the demonstration requires a specialist, you are looking at a reporting warehouse, not a map people will maintain.

Can we show Principles of Osteopathic Medicine from scheduled instruction, not reconstructed hours?

Hours reconstructed in a visit year are not hours. The 2026 table of contents titles 6.6 Principles of Osteopathic Medicine. Confirm current numbering on osteopathic.org. This page does not restate hour counts, lab formats, or any other element body.

The diligence question is practical. Pull this term's schedule. Can a stranger find where that instruction is supposed to happen, without emailing a coordinator? If not, mapping software will not invent the hours. Do not buy a module that quotes a named school's OPP load. Ask for your schedule.

Can we show comparable education across clinical education sites from the same record structure?

You can if the same records exist at every site, in the same structure, with named owners. You cannot if each clerkship site keeps its own spreadsheet and the dean's office reconciles them in visit year. The 2026 table of contents titles 6.11 Comparability Across Clinical Education Sites.

The test is two sites that teach the same rotation. Can a stranger find the objectives, the required experiences, and the assessment methods for both, without emailing a coordinator? If not, a "rural sites" demo is not comparability. This guide does not restate what the element requires. Confirm that on osteopathic.org.

Is Comprehensive Evidence-Based Nutrition Curriculum a row on our tracker?

If your 2023 tracker has no row for it, that is the diff talking. The 2026 table of contents titles 6.12 Comprehensive Evidence-Based Nutrition Curriculum. In September 2025, COCA announced that it had adopted a new accreditation requirement for evidence-based nutrition education. Confirm current numbering and submission requirements on osteopathic.org.

Do not treat this page as the requirement. Treat the missing row as a process failure you can still fix before the review date. Ask a vendor whether 6.12 is a first-class element in their framework, or a custom field someone will type in later.

Can we produce COMLEX-USA outcome tables from one source the school controls?

If COMLEX-USA results, the students they belong to, and the table that cites them live in one place, the annual report is a review. If they live in a registrar export, an exam-vendor portal, and a dean's-office spreadsheet, it is a reconstruction. The 2026 table of contents titles 11.4 COMLEX-USA.

NBOME, not COCA, publishes what COMLEX-USA is: a three-level national standardized licensure examination, and a graduation requirement for the DO degree from U.S. colleges of osteopathic medicine. That is member-organization fact, not COCA element text. Ask a vendor to start from last year's outcome table and walk backward to the source file. If the walk requires a data project, budget the data project honestly. Do not buy a "board readiness" dashboard.

Who owns the COCA Annual and Mid-Cycle Reports, and which edition's tables will they file?

A named owner, using the 2026 continuing reporting tables if the 2026 edition governs the next review. In the 2026 table of contents this sits at 11.9, COCA Annual and Mid-Cycle Reports. Older crosswalks that still park annual reporting in a different slot are the 2023 header talking.

The old brochure asked whether a platform could populate an "Annual COCA Data Report (ADR)" from live data. This page does not use that name. Confirm the current report titles and tables on osteopathic.org. Ask a vendor to show the 2026 reporting tables, not a generic export labeled accreditation.

Can faculty, coordinators, and preceptors read what they need without waiting on a file?

If they cannot, the record is already stale. Faculty will not email IT to find out whether a concept is already taught, coordinators will not wait two weeks to answer a committee question, and preceptors will not log into a second portal to finish an evaluation they were going to complete on paper.

Ask the vendor to hand a course director and a clinical coordinator a login (or an expiring review link) and have those people find their own sessions, assignments, and incomplete evaluations. If the demonstration requires a specialist, you are looking at a warehouse, not an operating record.

When a name, site, or requirement changes, how many other systems have to be updated by hand?

Count them, in a real meeting, with the people who do the typing. One change that fans out through the registrar, the evaluation system, the clinical scheduler, and the annual-report roster is not "integration." It is a defect you will rediscover every term.

This guide recommends a simple test: change a display name and a clerkship site for one masked student in the demo environment, then watch what else moves. If the vendor will not do that test, they already know the answer.

Will a vendor walk those records with our data, not a demo script?

Yes, or you are not in diligence yet. A platform that cannot load one course, one clinical site, and last year's COMLEX-USA outcome table into a working session is asking you to buy a story.

Bring one course to the conversation. Ask them to map it far enough that a gap is visible. Ask them to open a 2026 table-of-contents row and show the artifacts behind it. If the room fills with roadmap language, stop. The companion COCA operating guide and the comparison guide exists so this list does not have to become a vendor teardown.

What happens to our maps, evaluation history, and accreditation artifacts if we leave?

You get an export your next system can read, with the owners and dates still attached, or you do not. Find out which before you sign. Accreditation evidence that only exists inside a vendor's unique format becomes the next folder named for a year the day the contract ends.

Ask for the export formats in writing: curriculum as a spreadsheet, evaluations, and the accreditation artifact set. Then have someone in your shop, not the vendor, open the files. This guide's own rule is that a platform you cannot leave is not an operating record. It is a hostage.

The checklist

Download the DO platform diligence checklist (Excel), or the plain CSV if you would rather import it into Google Sheets or your own system: every question above as a row, with columns for the suggested owner, what "good" looks like, status, and notes. The workbook is a handoff for a meeting (names and dates in a file you can pass around). It is not the system of record. Put real names in the owner column at your next leadership meeting, and the standing list lives in the platform.

Where a platform helps

People hold the edition dates. Process is named owners on the 2026 clock. Platform comes last. Medtrics is one such platform. The operational map for the same edition clock is at Medical Schools.

The 2023 and 2026 evidence files are a packet problem, not a visit-year folder. Medtrics keeps every accreditation artifact in one access-controlled repository, categorized, with expiration alerts, and links each artifact as evidence to the standard it supports.

The edition clock is a workflow with owners. It tracks a multi-year accreditation effort, phases, owners, due dates, and directed update requests, in one workflow.

None of this files, certifies, or confers accreditation. Your school files its own COCA reports. That mapping is narrower than a brochure. It does not claim the product writes your annual report, maps your curriculum without faculty approval, computes osteopathic instructional hours from the schedule, or certifies CORE status. Those are either unverified here or the wrong thing to automate. None of this replaces the operating model. The edition, the owners, and the dean's sponsorship still do the work; a platform makes the boring structure durable when people leave.

Sources and status

This guide was verified on September 1, 2026 against the following sources. After publication, the current editions on osteopathic.org remain the only authoritative statement of any COCA requirement. NBOME remains the source for what COMLEX-USA is. COMLEX-USA facts below are from NBOME, a member organization, not from COCA requirement text. Element language is not quoted here.

• AOA accreditation announcements: December 4, 2025 approval of the 2026 Continuing Standards and 2026 New and Developing Standards; effective July 1, 2026 for the 2026-2027 academic year; applicable to colleges with pre-accreditation or accreditation status; reviews after February 1, 2027 run against the new edition; September 2025 nutrition-education requirement announcement. osteopathic.org/accreditation/announcements
• Accreditation of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine: COM Continuing Accreditation Standards (2026 edition): cover date February 1, 2026; effective July 1, 2026; for reviews occurring after February 1, 2027. Table of contents used for the element-number pointers above. Introduction used for programmatic accreditation of DO programs, the 12-standard structure, the requirement that standards 1-11 be met for full accreditation, Standard 12 applying only when COCA is the institutional accreditor, and CORE elements. osteopathic.org/wp-content/uploads/COCA-2026-COM-Continuing-Accreditation-Standards.pdf
• COCA accreditation standards listing (page last updated July 2026): the 2026 reporting tables and the published comparisons of the 2023 and 2026 continuing and new-and-developing standards. osteopathic.org/accreditation/standards
• NBOME COMLEX-USA: three-level national standardized licensure examination; graduation requirement for the DO degree from U.S. colleges of osteopathic medicine. Member-org fact, not COCA element text. nbome.org/assessments/comlex-usa

Element language is not quoted. Confirm current numbering and submission requirements on osteopathic.org before you budget anyone's year around a summary.

COCA, the American Osteopathic Association, and NBOME are named descriptively. This article is an independent buyer's guide from Medtrics, not COCA or NBOME guidance, and nothing here promises any accreditation outcome. The work does that, or nothing does.