Performance measurement and evaluation of health practitioner regulation: A scoping review protocol

Health practitioner regulation plays a fundamental role in public protection by overseeing and governing healthcare professionals to ensure they deliver safe health services. It also serves as a strategic lever to strengthen broader health system goals such as improving the accessibility of services, the sustainability of health workforces, and health system resilience. Although the goals of health practitioner regulation are easily articulated, achieving and evaluating these goals are far more challenging. Performance measurement and evaluation of professional regulators and regulatory systems are critical to improving regulatory processes and functions. This is especially important where there is rising government, public, and professional skepticism and mistrust of the effectiveness and efficiency of regulators across global jurisdictions. Although there is evidence that some health practitioner regulators and regulatory systems engage in performance measurement and evaluation, the similarities and differences remain unclear. The objective of this scoping review is to explore the nature, extent, and range of scholarship related to health practitioner regulatory performance measurement and evaluation. It will explore existing performance measurement and evaluation frameworks; the key principles and areas of focus of these frameworks; and the indicators, metrics and outcomes used to evaluate performance. The review will be conducted in accordance with the JBI guidelines for scoping reviews and will be reported following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews. Database searches will include Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid EMBASE, CINAHL, Scopus, and Web of Science Core Collection. Gray literature will be identified through leading regulatory organizations, consortiums, and think tanks. Two independent reviewers will screen titles and abstracts followed by full-text and disagreements will be resolved by a third reviewer. Data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics and conventional content analysis. Results will be presented using evidence tables and a narrative summary.