Regulating The Health Professions

This volume, developed by the Observatory together with OECD, provides an overall conceptual framework for understanding and applying strategies aimed at improving quality of care. Crucially, it summarizes available evidence on different quality strategies and provides recommendations for their implementation. This book is intended to help policy-makers to understand concepts of quality and to support them to evaluate single strategies and combinations of strategies.

`It has particular appeal for health-care professionals and managers with an interest in corporate and clinical governance′ - British Journal of Perioperative Nursing In recent years the health professions have been subject to unprecedented regulatory changes. Exposure of poor practice provoked widespread criticism of self-regulation and calls for a system in which the interests of health care consumers and employers are more fully recognized. Examining the historical and contemporary context, Regulating the Health Professions provides an in-depth analysis of professional self-regulation and the implications of regulatory change for the future of health care. Part One sets out general regulatory issues in the healthcare arena with chapters covering the impact of globalization on the professions, the purpose of professional regulation, the legal context of regulation and the significance of professional codes of ethics. In Part Two, issues specific to the different professions are explored through chapters on medicine, nursing, dentistry, the professions allied to medicine, clinical psychology and alternative medicine. This extremely topical book will be of interest to students, educators and researchers in a wide range of disciplines including sociology, social policy, politics and health studies, and to healthcare professionals and their managers.

`It has particular appeal for health-care professionals and managers with an interest in corporate and clinical governance' - British Journal of Perioperative Nursing In recent years the health professions have been subject to unprecedented regulatory changes. Exposure of poor practice provoked widespread criticism of self-regulation and calls for a system in which the interests of health care consumers and employers are more fully recognized. Examining the historical and contemporary context, Regulating the Health Professions provides an in-depth analysis of professional self-regulation and the implications of regulatory change for the future of health care. Part One sets out general regulatory issues in the healthcare arena with chapters covering the impact of globalization on the professions, the purpose of professional regulation, the legal context of regulation and the significance of professional codes of ethics. In Part Two, issues specific to the different professions are explored through chapters on medicine, nursing, dentistry, the professions allied to medicine, clinical psychology and alternative medicine. This extremely topical book will be of interest to students, educators and researchers in a wide range of disciplines including sociology, social policy, politics and health studies, and to healthcare professionals and their managers.

Today in the United States, the professional health workforce is not consistently prepared to provide high quality health care and assure patient safety, even as the nation spends more per capita on health care than any other country. The absence of a comprehensive and well-integrated system of continuing education (CE) in the health professions is an important contributing factor to knowledge and performance deficiencies at the individual and system levels. To be most effective, health professionals at every stage of their careers must continue learning about advances in research and treatment in their fields (and related fields) in order to obtain and maintain up-to-date knowledge and skills in caring for their patients. Many health professionals regularly undertake a variety of efforts to stay up to date, but on a larger scale, the nation's approach to CE for health professionals fails to support the professions in their efforts to achieve and maintain proficiency. Redesigning Continuing Education in the Health Professions illustrates a vision for a better system through a comprehensive approach of continuing professional development, and posits a framework upon which to develop a new, more effective system. The book also offers principles to guide the creation of a national continuing education institute.

There are significant variations in how healthcare systems and health professionals are regulated globally. One feature that they increasingly have in common is an emphasis on the value of including members of the public in quality assurance processes. While many argue that this will help better serve the public interest, others question how far the changing regulatory reform agenda is still dominated by medical interests. Bringing together leading academics worldwide, this collection compares and critically examines the ways in which different countries are regulating healthcare in general, and health professions in particular, in the interest of users and the wider public. It is the first book in the Sociology of Health Professions series.

Self-regulation has long been at the core of sociological understandings of what it means to be a "profession." However, the historical processes resulting in the formation of self-regulating professions have not been well understood. In Regulating Professions, Tracey L. Adams explores the emergence of self-regulating professions in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia from Confederation to 1940. Adams’s in-depth research reveals the backstory of those occupations deemed worthy to regulate, such as medicine, law, dentistry, and land surveying, and how they were regulated. Adams evaluates sociological explanations for professionalization and its regulation by analysing their applicability to the Canadian experience and especially the role played by the state. By considering the role of all those involved in creating the professional landscape in Canada, Adams provides a clear picture of the process and illuminates how important this has been in building Canadian institutions and society.

The Institute of Medicine study Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001) recommended that an interdisciplinary summit be held to further reform of health professions education in order to enhance quality and patient safety. Health Professions Education: A Bridge to Quality is the follow up to that summit, held in June 2002, where 150 participants across disciplines and occupations developed ideas about how to integrate a core set of competencies into health professions education. These core competencies include patient-centered care, interdisciplinary teams, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, and informatics. This book recommends a mix of approaches to health education improvement, including those related to oversight processes, the training environment, research, public reporting, and leadership. Educators, administrators, and health professionals can use this book to help achieve an approach to education that better prepares clinicians to meet both the needs of patients and the requirements of a changing health care system.