TY - JOUR
T1 - Regulating health professional scopes of practice
T2 - comparing institutional arrangements and approaches in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK
AU - Leslie, Kathleen
AU - Moore, Jean
AU - Robertson, Chris
AU - Bilton, Douglas
AU - Hirschkorn, Kristine
AU - Langelier, Margaret H.
AU - Bourgeault, Ivy Lynn
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - Background: Fundamentally, the goal of health professional regulatory regimes is to ensure the highest quality of care to the public. Part of that task is to control what health professionals do, or their scope of practice. Ideally, this involves the application of evidence-based professional standards of practice to the tasks for which health professional have received training. There are different jurisdictional approaches to achieving these goals. Methods: Using a comparative case study approach and similar systems policy analysis design, we present and discuss four different regulatory approaches from the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. For each case, we highlight the jurisdictional differences in how these countries regulate health professional scopes of practice in the interest of the public. Our comparative Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis is based on archival research carried out by the authors wherein we describe the evolution of the institutional arrangements for form of regulatory approach, with specific reference to scope of practice. Results/conclusions: Our comparative examination finds that the different regulatory approaches in these countries have emerged in response to similar challenges. In some cases, ‘tasks’ or ‘activities’ are the basis of regulation, whereas in other contexts protected ‘titles’ are regulated, and in some cases both. From our results and the jurisdiction-specific SWOT analyses, we have conceptualized a synthesized table of leading practices related to regulating scopes of practice mapped to specific regulatory principles. We discuss the implications for how these different approaches achieve positive outcomes for the public, but also for health professionals and the system more broadly in terms of workforce optimization.
AB - Background: Fundamentally, the goal of health professional regulatory regimes is to ensure the highest quality of care to the public. Part of that task is to control what health professionals do, or their scope of practice. Ideally, this involves the application of evidence-based professional standards of practice to the tasks for which health professional have received training. There are different jurisdictional approaches to achieving these goals. Methods: Using a comparative case study approach and similar systems policy analysis design, we present and discuss four different regulatory approaches from the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. For each case, we highlight the jurisdictional differences in how these countries regulate health professional scopes of practice in the interest of the public. Our comparative Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis is based on archival research carried out by the authors wherein we describe the evolution of the institutional arrangements for form of regulatory approach, with specific reference to scope of practice. Results/conclusions: Our comparative examination finds that the different regulatory approaches in these countries have emerged in response to similar challenges. In some cases, ‘tasks’ or ‘activities’ are the basis of regulation, whereas in other contexts protected ‘titles’ are regulated, and in some cases both. From our results and the jurisdiction-specific SWOT analyses, we have conceptualized a synthesized table of leading practices related to regulating scopes of practice mapped to specific regulatory principles. We discuss the implications for how these different approaches achieve positive outcomes for the public, but also for health professionals and the system more broadly in terms of workforce optimization.
KW - Australia
KW - Canada
KW - Health professions
KW - Professional regulation
KW - Scopes of practice
KW - UK
KW - US
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100176304&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1186/s12960-020-00550-3
DO - 10.1186/s12960-020-00550-3
M3 - Journal Article
C2 - 33509209
AN - SCOPUS:85100176304
VL - 19
JO - Human Resources for Health
JF - Human Resources for Health
IS - 1
M1 - 15
ER -