How are Professional Standards Developed?

The College is responsible, as per the Health Professions Act, to maintain a Standards of Practice.  A Standards of Practice document sets the minimal levels of performance for all regulated members.  Over the last 18 months, the College has worked with denturists to ensure that this document reflects best practice and looks to what’s ahead for the profession.  Through this process, we have also considered changes in regulation and what that means for all health professionals in Alberta, not just denturists.

In January 2020, the College started working with Morfokus Consulting on this project.  From the beginning, a key element of the work plan was to include a group of denturists as an advisory group.  The advisory group was composed of five denturists representing Albertan denturists geographically, by professional experience, and current work environment. While the consultants and College staff worked to write the new drafts, the advisory group always provided direction, insight, and approval along the way and Council kept abreast of the progress of the project.

At the point where the advisory group was in agreement with all aspects of the draft document, the document was shared with Council to receive feedback and ultimately their approval for the draft standards to be shared with denturists to gain their feedback.  Feedback from denturists was collected through a clear and objective survey.  A survey is used for this purpose, by regulators, to ensure that the data that is collected is focused, associated with a particular part of the document, and can ultimately be used meaningfully in the revision process.

Through this survey process we received 119 responses (or 39% from those who were invited to participate).  Respondents were representative of all aspects of practice, experience level, and practice locations (I.e., urban, semi-urban, rural). Overall, the feedback received was overwhelmingly in support of the new standards; however, suggestions were made, and questions raised that were addressed by the consultant, staff, the advisory group and ultimately Council.  Such an example would be clarifying the language around informed consent.

Following the revisions that were made as a result of the survey feedback, the document was brough to Council again for further feedback and approval for the document to go to the next step in the process of standard development – submission to the government for stakeholder consultation.  The College went one step further and shared the document also with the Denturist Association of Alberta to gain their feedback as the professional association.

At present, we are waiting to receive the feedback from the government and stakeholders. It is anticipated that this should arrive in the next couple of weeks.  From this, all feedback is again considered, and revisions made, if necessary.  A final document will be presented to Council for final approval. Council will consider this request and if approved, will set an adoption date for the new Standards.  Denturists will be adequately notified of this date.

It is worth mentioning that the new standards, although a much longer document, does not provide any new requirements that what already was expected of denturists, but it does provide clarity and structure to assist everyone in utilizing the document.  Further, the new Code of Ethics will be adopted at the same time as the Standards to ensure alignment.

Should anyone have any questions about this process which is based on best practice in standards development, please do not hesitate to reach out to Dacia at drichmond@abdenturists.ca.