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Practice Education Guidelines
Introductory Module

British Columbia

August 2019

Table of Contents

The Practice Education Community. 1 ^[2]

Purpose of Practice Education Guidelines. 1 ^[3]

Scope. 2 ^[4]

Governance. 2 ^[5]

How to use the guidelines. 3 ^[6]

Development, Review, and Revision of Guidelines. 3 ^[7]

Appendix A – Practice Education Guideline Template. 5 ^[8]

 

 

The Practice Education Community

An environment of collaboration and collegiality facilitates learning with the ultimate goal of providing safe, consistent, quality care and service. Both the Post-Secondary Institutions and Health Care Organizations have a role in the learning of the Student.

Post-Secondary Institutions provide the theory and skills that meet the requirements for graduation. Health Care Organizations provide learning opportunities for Students to apply theory and skills to practice. A learning environment is at its best when this partnership exists.

The ultimate goal is to have graduates who are safe, competent, and ready to contribute to their chosen field.

Purpose of Practice Education Guidelines

Practice Education Guidelines (PEGs) give Health Care Organizations (HCOs) and Post-Secondary Institutions (PSIs) direction for working together to plan and direct student practice education for all healthcare disciplines in the province of British Columbia (BC).

The guidelines are intended to address a broad range of disciplines in diverse organizational contexts in the province. Guidelines do not address specific procedures and practices.

PEGs:

• Promote quality and safety of the practice experience.
• Promote evidence-based practice education.
• Align with current regulations, standards, and legislation.
• Provide clarity of roles and responsibilities for all practice education partners.
• Provide common, inclusive language understood by a broad range of healthcare disciplines (regulated and unregulated).
• Promote clarity, consistency, and equity for planning and placement processes.

 

 

Scope

The PEGs are a provincial resource. HCOs and PSIs can draw upon them to inform their own agency policy and use for student practice education.

These PEGs apply to:

• registered Students and Educators affiliated with Public or Private Post-Secondary Institutions
• Workers employed by BC Health Care Organizations
• non-clinical and clinical Contractors/Vendors who accept Students for practice education experiences while providing goods or services within or on behalf of the HCO

These PEGs do not apply to individuals seeking an observational or practice education experience who are:

• not registered Students in a PSI, or
• registered PSI Students seeking an opportunity for a defined learning purpose outside of an existing curriculum requirement (self-directed), or
• Secondary Students seeking a learning experience for career exploration or requiring an observational experience as part of the application process for a PSI health care program

Governance

The HCO Chief Nursing and Allied Health Officers and the PSI Deans and Directors oversee and approve the development and content of the Practice Education Guidelines. This group has the authority to endorse, disseminate, and evaluate the guideline information, but has no authority to enforce adoption and/or compliance by individual agencies.

Guidelines are intended to give direction to both HCOs and PSIs. Individual agencies decide whether to adopt or adapt the guidelines in order to reflect and align with their individual contexts.

Each agency is responsible for communicating their approved guidelines to their stakeholders.

 

 

How to use the guidelines

Provincial lead agency makes PEGs publicly available on the Health Sciences Placement Network ^[9] (HSPnet) web site.

The PEGS offer a common reference source to inform agency policy.

HCOs use PEGs to support consistent Student practice education within their organization, region, and across the province.

PSIs use the PEGs to design, plan, implement, and evaluate practice education placements for students according to HCO expectations and requirements.

HCOs and PSIs:

• Review the posted PEG.
• Choose to adopt or adapt PEGs where applicable.
• When adopted, indicate adoption by:
• linking to the posted PEGs within agency policies, procedures, and processes
• accepting PEGs within HSPnet
• Incorporate PEGs into agency policies, procedures, and processes.
• Ensure all relevant stakeholders have access to PEG-related policies, procedures and processes by, for example, making them available on public websites.

Development, Review, and Revision of Guidelines

Guiding Principles

• Develop, review, and revise PEGs collaboratively between HCO and PSI partners.
• Ensure guidelines apply broadly to all healthcare disciplines.
• Use relevant legislation and best practice evidence to inform PEGs.
• Refer to regulatory body for discipline-specific professional standards where appropriate.
• Engage content experts to review guidelines for accuracy and currency.
• Use strong consensus of support from key stakeholders where legislation, evidence, or regulatory body standards do not exist.
• Use policy experts to guide the process.
• Use inclusive, succinct, everyday language.
• Use consistent standard terminology and abbreviations.

 

 

Frequency and criteria for updates

• Review and update guidelines at least every 3 years.
• Update guidelines when:
• new knowledge, research, or evidence is available
• new legislation, regulation, recognition/approval, or accreditation changes
  are made
• a new risk is identified
• there are new relevant regional or provincial policies
• there is an identified need for streamlining or integration of systems, processes, or programs
• technology or system designs impose an impact

Process

• Submit a request to develop, review, or revise via provincial lead agency
  (Director of Provincial Practice Education and HSPnet, Provincial Health Services Authority) to the:
• HCO Chief Nursing and Allied Health Officers
• PSI Deans and Directors
• Use the standard template (Appendix A).
• Engage relevant stakeholders and content experts.
• For revisions, identify or highlight the changes made.
• Seek consensus agreement between the HCOs and PSIs.

Disseminate

The provincial lead agency:

• Posts approved PEGs on the HSPnet website: net/features/ ^[9]
• Notifies stakeholders, such as:
• HCO directors and leaders of practice education
• PSI deans and directors
• HCO and PSI practice education coordinators

 

4 September 2019

 

 

Appendix A – Practice Education Guideline Template

Month Year

Intent / Purpose

• Describe the intention, purpose, or objective of the guideline briefly and succinctly using active voice.
• Include both sectors’ lenses.

Definitions

Refer to: Standard Terms and Abbreviations.

Term	Definition with reference wherever possible
Term	Define only those terms unique to the specific PEG.

Practice Education Guidelines

State the expectations of stakeholders from both sectors.

Identify requirements or best practices, based on:

• existing policies, procedures, and protocols
• practice standards and guidelines
• expert protocols
• research
• overarching and relevant legislation

Use evidence to support expectation:

• Explain variations to guideline.
• Support with clear rationale.

Be inclusive of all types of health care disciplines, Students, and practice education experiences, both general and direct care specific.

State possible risks of not adhering to the PEG.

Cross-map to other relevant PEGs where applicable.

Do not include operational details (the ‘how’). Leave this to the individual agency.

 

 

Roles, Responsibilities and Expectations

Post-Secondary Institution

• Describe the responsibilities and expected way of implementing the guideline for relevant stakeholders in both sectors:

Student

PSI / HCO Educator

Health Care Organization

HCO Worker (if relevant)

References and Resources

List all references and resources used to inform the guideline. Include link to resource.

Use APA style.

Government of British Columbia. (n.d.). Title Protection. Retrieved August 27, 2019 from https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/health/practitioner-professional-resources/professional-regulation/title-protection ^[10]

Guideline Review History

Record the details of the development or revision including revision #, date, people responsible (and roles within the process: author, editor, reviewer), and brief description of or reason for change.

Version	Date	People Responsible	Brief Description (reason for change)
#	Month Year	Role: Name (Organization)	Updated references and resources

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