Using registrant-provided information about practice, geography, employment, and quality assurance, 18 potential risk indicators across 3 risk categories are identified.
Sampling method: % of occupational therapists selected from each risk category.
These risk indicators and categories are:
Practice Risks (10)
- High number of employers (at one time)
- Temporary primary employment
- Casual primary employment
- Low practice hours (per week)
- Limited currency
- Shift from non-clinical to clinical practice
- Suitability to practice (for example: finding/facing misconduct, incompetence, or incapacity)
- Practice includes medically delegated acts
- Clients of different age ranges across settings
- Different types of practice settings at one time
Isolation Risks (3)
- Many years since graduation (more than 25 years)
- Casual status at primary employer
- Self-employment/solo practice
Quality Assurance Behavioural Risks (5)
Based on the registrant’s most recent self-assessment, the risk indicators include:
- Rating 8 or less competencies on the clinical self-assessment, or rating 5 or less competencies on the non-clinical assessment with all others being not applicable
- Not setting any competency priorities
- Stating no need for any professional development on any competency
- Giving more than 90% of competencies the same rating
- Giving all competencies the same priority
When selected for Competency Assessment, the above indicators and categories are combined to create risk groupings:
- No indicators in any category: 0
- Any number of indicators in ONE of:Practice, Quality, or Isolation: Group 1
- Any number of indicators in TWO of: Practice, Quality, or Isolation: Group 2
- Any number of indicators in ALL of: Practice, Quality, and Isolation: Group 3
For example, if an occupational therapist’s practice includes medically delegated acts (a practice risk) and they are self-employed (an isolation risk), they are in group 2.
When selecting registrants to participate in Competency Assessment, more are chosen from Group 2 and 3.
All registrants, however, will be selected to participate, throughout their careers, regardless of grouping.
Selecting registrants to participate in competency assessment is a legal requirement of the College and supports right-touch public protection.
Note: The risk indicators and groupings do not indicate any judgment about an occupational therapist’s practice or abilities. The risk indicators simply provide a first grouping to determine which registrants should be assessed sooner than others.