In 1997, Alberta Health and Wellness (Canada) undertook an ambitious initiative to develop competency profiles for all of the 30 regulated health care professions under its jurisdiction.

Since that time, comprehensive competency profiles have been developed for:

1. Chiropractors
2. Dentists
3. Dental Assistants
4. Dental Technologists / Technicians
5. Health Care Aides (with a standardized, fully modularized training program)
6. Hearing Aid Practitioners
7. Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN)
8. Medical doctors (preliminary draft only) 
9. Medical Laboratory Technologists
10. Naturopathic Doctors
11. Opticians
12. Paramedics
13. Pharmacists
14. Registered Psychiatric Nurses (RPN)

In 2000, the Health Professions Act was passed in Alberta requiring that all regulated health professions have a continuing competence program in place, and that annual reports be made to government.

Funding and facilitator assistance were provided by Alberta Health and Wellness to the professional Colleges/Associations. The development of each continuing competence program took from one to two years and involved three phases. These were:

1. Competency profile – each profile was developed through a series of workshops with a committee of 6 to 20 experienced practitioners led by a facilitator with consulting and content expertise support. The draft competency profile was then “validated” by other members of the profession at a series of regional one-day meetings. The final competency profile was then approved by the College’s or Association's Board or Council.

2. Assessment and reporting – this phase involved the development of self-assessment tools and processes. In most cases, a self-assessment form was developed based on the detailed competency profile. Also in this stage, the format, content and processes for an individualized learning plan were established. Practitioners were required to prepare a learning plan based on their self assessment. This learning plan has to be submitted to the College/Association on an annual basis as a condition of renewal of registration. The self-assessment form and learning plan were tested and validated in a pilot project.

3. Piloting and implementation – all groups ran a year’s pilot program to evaluate their instruments and processes. Software such as CompeTrax was acquired and set up to manage the data from the continuing competence programs. Once the pilots were complete, and appropriate adjustments were made, the continuing competence programs were implemented.

All the competency profiles funded by the government are owned by Alberta Health and Wellness. However, licensing arrangements are available. Licensing of existing competency profiles, related tools and software is a very cost-effective and quick method for implementing continuing competence programs for health care professions in other jurisdictions. Licensing requires that the competency profile be "validated" with members of the profession in the new jurisdictions.

Please contact us for more information regarding licensing arrangements for any of the health professions' competency profiles shown above.