Transforming and Supporting Patient Care - Health Professions ...

16Chapter 1 – An Introductionprofessionals, professional associations, representatives from hospitals,the community sector, patient safety organizations, and experts from otherjurisdictions. A pharmacology expert was engaged to assist in providingspecialized knowledge in framing questions and analyzing responses.Changes in federal regulations were considered at some length, followingextensive interviews and discussions concerning the treatment of naturalhealth products in the context of provincial drug regulations.The Balance of This ReportHPRAC views interprofessional care and collaboration as strategies formaximizing the contribution of health professionals and reaping the mostvalue from increasingly scarce health human resources. Likewise, HPRAC’srecommendations on a framework and process for drug regulations inOntario focus on a more effective and efficient process for designated drugregulation approvals and to capitalize more fully on the education andtraining of health professionals in a wide range of disciplines to enhancetheir role in the safe prescribing and use of drugs for the benefit of theirpatients.The remainder of this report is organized to provide insight into HPRAC’sthinking on:• Essential ways to introduce new measures to promote excellencein health profession regulation in Ontario, including advancingand supporting interprofessional collaboration;• A new framework for scrutiny of requests for designated drugapprovals and associated regulations under health professionActs;• Scope of practice reviews relating to interprofessionalcollaboration and drug regulations; and• Reviews and recommendations on specific authorities for healthprofessions to prescribe or use drugs in the course of practice.Scope of Practice Reviews: the Context of Interprofessional CollaborationAs part of its work on interprofessional collaboration, HPRAC has completedreviews of the scope of practice of six professions. The findings of the firstfour reviews were presented in HPRAC’s September 2008 interim report andthe results of the final two appear in Chapters five and six of this report.These studies have been carried out in response to the Minister’s requestfor advice on supporting collaboration between colleges in thedevelopment of standards of practice where professions share the same orsimilar controlled acts. More broadly, HPRAC has undertaken these scopeof practice reviews because of the imperative to realize the full potential forall health professionals to contribute to the quality of care.A health care system where all health professionals function to the fullestextent of their education and training as part of integrated andcollaborative teams is a key to improving access to seamless, effective,patient-centred care. Collaboration among health profession colleges, asHPRAC Critical Links January 2009