Standards of Practice: A living document

Standards of Practice are essential to ensure quality care is provided to all Albertans by all healthcare professions. These Standards not only provide direction to regulated members in the provision of care but also explain elements of care that patients and the public can expect in their professional interactions with regulated members.

The College’s Standards of Practice (or SoPs) were recently completely rewritten and released in July 2021. These Standards expanded on many areas that the former version did not include – and they now provide a lot more detail on the expectations of care that is to be delivered by regulated members.

We’ve highlighted all four new Standards of Practice that were approved in July 2021… now what? Well, as professions change and as healthcare evolves, so too must legislative documents like the Standards of Practice.

In fact, coming soon will be a public and member consultation on a revised set of Standards. These changes will be happening as a result of Bill 46, which requires significant changes to where regulatory information is recorded. What does that mean? Well, as colleges came under the Health Professions Act (HPA), more and more regulation was required. This meant that as the government was adding new regulation, older regulation was becoming outdated. Now that almost all professions are governed under the HPA, it’s clear that some information shouldn’t be in regulation – which takes significant time and government involvement to update.

The College will be moving the required sections into the Standards of Practice from the current Paramedic Professions Regulation. These changes give us an opportunity to address some of the other necessary revisions we’ve come to identify throughout the first five years of working under the HPA.

We invite all interested parties to watch our news posts for the opportunity to be involved in the review of our upcoming Standards of Practice changes.

We encourage everyone to read through the new Standard of Practices to learn more. If you have any questions, comments or general feedback, please email communications@ABparamedics.com.