Earlier this month we held a facilitated staff workshop to imagine a new future for quality practice. This month’s column is an adaptation of the introductory remarks by CHCPBC Registrar and CEO Dianne Millette.
As a health professions regulator, promoting quality practice is a critical part of our work. Certainly, a health professional must meet the entry-to-practice standards to become regulated, but what happens in the years following initial registration is just as critical. If we are effective in supporting the delivery of quality practice, there is a powerful upstream effect.
Quality practice ensures a better experience for patients and clients, and helps to improve health outcomes. It is also preventative, in that it reduces the likelihood of care that falls below expectations, resulting in complaints.
What I have learned through my years in professional regulation is that having a great practice support program is one of the most impactful things a college can do to enhance public safety. Setting standards of practice and investigating complaints is not sufficient; ultimately our goal is to prevent complaints from ever being needed in the first place.
The legacy colleges that formed CHCPBC have set us up well to build a strong quality practice function. We have a team of professional practice advisors to answer questions about professional practice issues. (After we fill our last two vacancies, we will have an in-house practice advisor for each of the nine professions.) And we have a quality assurance team that oversees the assessment process and supports compliance with continuing competence requirements.
Our goal in the months to come will be to build a unified quality practice program for all the nine professions we regulate. This is an incredible opportunity: one that will see us engage with you as registrants to build something new in the service of better health care for people in BC.
