New Medical Board of Australia CPD Registration Standards
February 2, 2023
We all need to upskill with continuous professional development (CPD) each year. CPD is essential for doctors to continue building and improving their skills. Important to help stay current with the latest medical research, treatments, and technologies; CPD ultimately leads to better patient outcomes and healthcare. CPD can also help you stay engaged and motivated in your career, and can even open up opportunities for advancement.
Furthermore, CPD is mandatory to maintain your licence and to stay updated with the latest standards of care and guidelines in the medical field. Therefore, it is important for healthcare professionals to participate in regular CPD activities to ensure they are providing the best possible care to their patients.
Registration standards set out the requirements that applicants, registrants or students need to meet in order to be registered. The Medical Board of Australia has recently passed new legislation determining the continuous professional development guidelines for doctors and health professionals.
These new standards are build on the 3 core elements of:
- CPD homes for all – for quality assurance
- Professional development plans for all – for CPD with purpose
- Different types of CPD – for CPD with value
What is a CPD Home?
CPD homes are quality-assured and support safe practice. They provide CPD programs that are robust, monitored and evaluated, support doctors to tailor CPD to their learning needs, are accredited by the AMC (Australian Medical Council), coordinate CPD programs, ensure quality activities and help doctors keep track of their CPD hours with a system for CPD record-keeping. On top of this, CPD homes make sure that doctors meet CPD requirements, including for culturally safe practice, addressing health inequities, professionalism and ethical practice.
As of 1 January 2023, changes will come into place around CPD homes. AMC-accredited specialist medical colleges and new accredited organisations with make-up CPD homes for doctors. Doctors doing CPD in colleges will be able to meet updated CPD requirements, and those in other accredited CPD homes will be able to meet CPD requirements.
What are Professional Development Plans? What are the types of CPD I can complete?
Professional development plans (PDP) are a tool to help make sure the CPD we do is relevant and useful. They help doctors;
– Connect learnings to practice needs
– Match increasing skills and knowledge to changes in practice
– Aid in thinking about lifelong learning, knowledge gaps and learning opportunities to continue professional development
A PDP may be custom made or a template provided by a CPD home, either way, they should measure 50 hours of CPD required each year. Through updated CPD, doctors in Australia will do 50 hours CPD each year, split across a range of activities:
– 25 hours reviewing performance (RP) and measuring outcomes (MO). This includes activities such as (but not limited to) peer-group learning (PGL), supervised clinical attachment, peer-reviewed journal article (publications), random case analysis (RCA), any competency-based skills training e.g. Advanced Life Support, Basic Life Support, etc.
– 12.5 hours completing traditional learning or educational activities (EA). This includes activities such as (but not limited to) reading, lectures, conferences, courses, workshops, eLearning, webinars, seminars, podcasts.
– 12.5 hours completing a free choice of activities; these may fall into the above categories or include personal development, assessing incident reports, leading, analysing, writing reports on healthcare outcomes, and relevant learnings for progression of career.
With these changes, CPD can be taken into your own hands, consolidating how, what and when you wish to study for your continuous professional development. It also pays respect and recognises study that you have likely completed outside of formal engagements, and activities that may have not been previously recognised. With more flexibility than ever, Med CPD is here to facilitate the opportunity to find and learn what you need for your scope of practice.
For more information to understand your requirements for 2023 and beyond, find out more on the Medical Board of Australia website here; Medical Board of Australia – Professional Development Plans & Types of CPD
