The guidelines, voluntary for now, are likely to be adopted by the association's accreditation commission.

The association also has an accreditation commission that has accredited about 200 facilities across the country.

Several Harlem Hospital administrators said that most of the problems cited by the accreditation commission have been corrected - at least for the time being.

Higher education accreditation in the United States is a peer review process coordinated by accreditation commissions and member institutions.

In the United States, educational accreditation has long been established as a peer review process coordinated by accreditation commissions and member institutions.

It has since been accredited by the Land Trust Alliance's Accreditation Commission in 2008.

Each program is then assigned to one of four accreditation commissions within ABET:

The Accreditation Commission of Colleges of Medicine is an international review and accreditation service for medical schools.

"On a relative value base, they have fallen down the scale," said Dr. Dennis O'Leary, president of the accreditation commission.

"That idea of 'no pain, no gain' that people have heard all their lives is just flat-out wrong," said Ms. Patterson of the accreditation commission.