Transforming and Supporting Patient Care - Health Professions ...

21Chapter 2 – Excellence in Health Profession Regulation: Raising the Bar in Ontarioshould include recommendations that will achieve greater regulatory rigourand foster excellence in the way Colleges regulate their members.It is time for the law to catch up to, and reflect, the changes that haveemerged in the day-to-day practice environment. It is essential tostrengthen self-regulation. To help achieve that goal, a new independentagency should be introduced to work with the Colleges to modernize theregulatory system, achieve greater transparency and accountability, andfacilitate sustained quality improvement in the regulation of healthprofessionals in Ontario.The new agency that HPRAC proposes, the Council on Health ProfessionsRegulatory Excellence (CHPRE), would support and provide a strongmonitoring and advisory role to ensure that Colleges fulfill their newobjects under the Health System Improvements Act, 2007 (HSIA). In doing so,the new agency would facilitate and coordinate interprofessionalcollaboration among Colleges and coordinate a drug approvals frameworkfor health professionals who prescribe or use drugs in the course of theirpractice. The mandate of CHPRE would be to promote regulatory excellenceand strengthen self-regulation so that health colleges continue to protectthe public interest and foster the trust that patients place in healthprofessionals.CHPRE would have an explicit mission to promote interprofessionalcollaboration among health colleges. Self-regulation is fundamental to theCanadian health care system and Ontario is a world leader in the selfregulationof health professions. However, promising opportunities exist toenhance interprofessional collaboration at the regulatory level through thecreation of a more flexible regulatory framework that is better positioned toevolve with and support the growing reliance in the health care system oninterprofessional care and practice.The proposed reforms reflect trends in other jurisdictions where growingattention is being paid to the role of regulators and systems of regulation inpromoting collaborative practice among health care professionals. Thereforms are proactive. They will drive continuous improvement in the wayhealth professions are regulated, so Ontarians derive the maximum benefitfrom health human resources.BackgroundInterprofessional Care and Interprofessional CollaborationInterprofessional care describes teamwork among health professionals fromdifferent disciplines to provide comprehensive, high-quality, patient-centredcare, whether in institutions or in the community. It takes place at theclinical level. Interprofessional care teams have long existed in certainsettings and contexts, such as intensive care units, neonatal care,emergency departments, surgery units, and cancer care.In recent years, interest has grown in collaborative models of health care,with interprofessional care teams emerging in a wider variety of geographic,clinical and professional settings. This trend has arisen in part because ofHPRAC Critical Links January 2009