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NARTRB |
National Alliance of
Respiratory Therapy Regulatory Bodies (NARTRB)
| The
National Alliance of Respiratory Therapy
Regulatory Bodies (NARTRB) launches Phase II of
HRSDC project. |
On March 31, 2009 the National Alliance
of Respiratory Therapy Regulatory Bodies
(NARTRB) completed Phase I of the
project entitled: “Assessment Tools for
Regulation of Canadian and Foreign
Trained Healthcare Practitioners Seeking
to Practice respiratory Therapy in
Canada”. One of the key components of
Phase I was the execution of a research
project that provided an overview of the
existing processes in Canada for the
recognition of respiratory therapy
credentials and identified the
challenges faced by internationally
educated health care professionals who
want to work in Canada in the field of
respiratory therapy. This project
allowed the NARTRB to identify the
strengths, weaknesses as well as the
opportunities and challenges faced by
the regulatory bodies as more and more
internally educated applicants seek work
in Canada. The final report included a
series of recommendations to facilitate
the integration of international
educated health care professionals
within the Canadian respiratory care
system.
The NARTRB, with assistance from the
CSRT Executive Director, has secured
funding from Human Resources and Skills
Development Canada (HRSDC) to pursue
activities that will facilitate the
mobility of the RT professionals across
Canada and the integration of
internationally-educated health
professionals who want to work in
respiratory therapy in Canada. The
project was launched on October 23,
2009.
Phase II of the NARTRB project will
include three components:
Component 1 includes the
implementation of the recommendations
included in the Phase I diagnostic
report. The objective is to
establish a common national process for
the credentialing assessment, the prior
learning assessment, and the competency
assessment of internationally educated
health professionals who would like to
enter the profession in Canada for the
practice of respiratory therapy.
Component 2 includes a review and
update of the Mutual Recognition
Agreement between regulated and
non-regulated provinces. With the
revisions to Chapter 7 of the Agreement
on Internal Trade (AIT) implemented this
year by the federal / provincial /
territorial governments, the current
mutual recognition agreement is no
longer valid because the AIT provisions
do not apply to health care
professionals in non-regulated
jurisdictions. A regulatory authority
may impose additional measures on a
practitioner coming from an unregulated
jurisdiction. This practice potentially
creates a barrier for the labour
mobility of RTs in non-regulated
jurisdictions, and particularly
internationally educated health care
professionals. The objective is to
ensure labour mobility between
non-regulated and regulated
jurisdictions is in full compliance with
Chapter 7 of the AIT to ensure
conformity of standards and registration
requirements for RTs between all
jurisdictions across Canada.
Component 3 includes a psychometric
evaluation of the equivalency and gap
analysis between the Canadian and
American National Certification exams.
The Canadian Society of Respiratory
Therapists has had a long standing
reciprocity agreement with the National
Board of Respiratory Care which expired
in May 2009. Given that the regulatory
environment has changed substantially
since the reciprocity agreement was put
in place over a decade ago (there are
currently seven regulated
jurisdictions), it is not possible to
renew this reciprocity agreement without
having a comprehensive assessment of
equivalency of practice competencies
performed. The objective of this
component is to investigate the
potential of reciprocity between
Canadian and American jurisdictions
through the evaluation of the exam
process and to investigate what
additional measures may be required for
the integration of American health care
professionals in respiratory therapy
into the Canadian health care system.
Each of the components outlined above
will be executed under the direction of
a Steering Committee that includes
representatives from each regulated
jurisdictions as well as from the CSRT.
Regular updates will be communicated as
we move forward in the implementation of
these important initiatives.
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