What happens after an assessment
Improve quality of care and safety for patients
All physicians strive to provide the highest quality care to their patients; nevertheless, it's always possible to improve quality.
Quality assurance is needed to establish confidence that a physician’s performance meets a standard that ensures patient safety. Quality improvement and quality assurance are complementary of each other in order to continually improve the quality of health care.
Quality improvement approach
The PPEP encourages continuous quality improvement through learning and feedback throughout a physician’s career. Physicians can expect to receive a Performance Review and Action Plan (PRAP) report providing feedback on their physician assessment.
Our quality improvement approach uses an improvement cycle:
- The physician assessment process evaluates the physician’s practice.
- The program provides the physician with feedback.
- The physician reflects on the feedback and creates a learning plan.
- The physician is encouraged to apply the strategies in their plan to their practice.
- The changes made are reviewed and evaluated.
Continuing professional develop credit
Physicians participating in the program may qualify for continuing professional development credits for their physician assessment and follow-up activities through the following programs:
What can physicians do to improve their practice?
The initial physician assessment follows through steps 1 and 2 of the quality improvement cycle.
- Step 1: Gather data on your practice
- Step 2: Reflect on your practice
Once the initial assessment (steps 1 and 2) is complete, we encourage physicians to develop and engage in their own professional development (steps 3, 4 and 5), and strive to improve their practice.
- Step 3: Create your own plan
- Step 4: Implement your plan
- Step 5: Evaluate your outcomes
Develop an action plan
The PRAP report provides tools or resources to support physicians to make changes to their practice based on their assessment findings. Some physicians may be required to complete quality improvement activities in follow-up to their assessments.
In some cases, returning a completed action plan to us is required as a precursor to a chart submission.
The physician is asked to
- identify areas for improvement as noted in their PRAP report,
- identify the steps they will take to make those improvements, and
- provide implementation dates for these actions.
This gives us an idea of the physician’s understanding of the improvements needed, and their plan to make those changes.
A medical advisor will review and provide feedback on the plan to ensure the physician is on the right path to making improvements. These improvements should then be reflected in their charts and lead to a successful chart submission.
Connect with a PPEP medical advisor
Some physicians are required or recommended to connect with a medical advisor who can help plan improvements and direct them to resources. This is meant as further guidance and support as they make the required changes to their practice.
Where can physicians be referred to for additional support?
Depending on the findings from the physician assessment, physicians may be referred on to other areas of the College for further support.
For physicians needing extra support with their prescribing of controlled medications
Referral to the Prescription Review Program
For physicians working in an office where medical device reprocessing takes place
Referral to the Physician Office Medical Device Reprocessing Assessments
What happens if there are serious practice concerns or insufficient improvement following a PPEP assessment?
While PPEP and physician assessments are anchored in quality improvement, we also have a duty to ensure that physicians are providing patients with safe care.
A physician may be referred to the College’s Inquiry Committee in these situations:
- Their clinical care and decision-making falls short of the College’s standards and guidelines. The College will investigate under its mandate to protect the safety of the public.
- A physician may also be asked to attend an interview with a PPE Panel member and a PPEP medical advisor or the deputy registrar to provide charts for review and discussion.