Scope Of Practice Review - Health Professions Regulatory Advisory ...

Purpose, Approach & Format of the PaperThis paper summarizes some of the recent literature on Medical Laboratory Technology (MLT)practice as it relates to the changes being proposed. It is not intended to represent an exhaustivereview of the literature; rather, it focuses on identifying key documents that may help to informdiscussions about and considerations of the scope of practice review for Medical LaboratoryTechnology in Ontario.The literature reviewed in this paper should be examined in conjunction with documents highlightedin a previous literature review 8 completed by HPRAC in January 2008. That review looked atinterprofessional collaboration with respect to the legislative, regulatory, policy andstructural/organizational issues that can facilitate and support health regulatory colleges and theirmembers in advancing collaborative practice.The literature included in the medical laboratory technology review comes from diverse sources. Initialreference documents were included in the submission to HPRAC by The College of Medical LaboratoryTechnologists of Ontario (June 30, 2008). 9 Additional literature sources were identified through aliterature search focused on the following terms:• “scope of practice medical laboratory technology”• “scope of practice medical laboratory technologists”• “medical laboratory technology and scope of practice”• “enhanced scope of practice for medical laboratory technologists”• “medical laboratory technologists Ontario”• “medical laboratory technolog* and interprofessional”• “medical laboratory technolog* and collaboration”• “medical laboratory technolog* and advanced”• “laboratory and error” - “pre-analytical error” – “pre-analytical phase”.Regulatory-related articles using PubMed Search were also reviewed. In addition, supplementarysearches were undertaken to identify specific reports from government websites, health care associations,and health policy think tanks in an attempt to locate studies related to regulation and medical laboratorytechnology scope of practice as identified in some of the literature reviewed. Some of these searcheswere successful, others were not.The literature reviewed on the issue has been organized as follows:• Section 1 provides a high level analysis summarizing some of the key findings arising from theliterature.• Section 2 summarizes the documents reviewed organized under the following three themes:scope of practice; health system needs/improvement; and health outcomes/patient safety/ risk ofharm.8 See www.hprac.org for the full copy of the literature review: HPRAC. Interprofessional Regulatory Collaboration – Asummary of key reference documents and selected highlights from the literature. January 2008.9 CMLTO, OSMT and CSMLS. Submission to HPRAC Regarding: Medical Laboratory Technologists’ Scope of Practice.Submitted to HPRAC June 30, 2008.4