Announcement of the 2013 Massage Therapy Research Fund

TouchPoint
Fall/Winter 2013/Volume 20 Issue 2
Table of Contents
From the Registrar 2
From the President 5
Get to Know Your College 7
Champions of the College - Interview with Elyse Sheardown, RMT & Phil
Rowland, RMT 9
Important Information for Massage Therapists who provide Acupuncture within
the Scope of Practice of Massage Therapy 11
Joint Fact Sheet on: Acupuncture Treatment Provided by Registered Massage
Therapists (RMT) 13
Circle of Care - Sharing Personal Health Information for Health Care
Purposes 16
Social Media & Confidentiality 20
Massage Therapy Accreditation Planning Committee Report - October 2013
23
Renewals Are Going Paperless! 25
Announcement of the 2013 Massage Therapy Research Fund (MTRF) competition
25
Multiple Choice Examination (MCQ) Fee to Increase Effective January 2014
27
Special Announcement - 2012/2013 MTRF Grant Recipients 28
Council Highlights 29
Notice of Acclamation of Members to Council 33
Call for Non-Council Members 33
Committees 2013 36
Council 2013 37
2014 Council Meeting Schedule 38
In Memoriam 38
From the Registrar Since my last article, the College has been able to move many projects
forward, in addition to the day-to-day administration of the legislation
that governs the Massage Therapy profession. Some of these projects are
anticipated and planned for in the College's annual workplan, which is a
combination of strategic and operational initiatives. Other projects arise
during the year as the College, in its continual scanning of issues and
risk, determines that a particular project has emerged as needing immediate
attention. One project, which was unplanned, was the investigation into the exam
security breach of 2012. This project was commenced in 2012 and has
continued into 2013. For many reasons, the investigation is still underway.
During the investigation, the College has continually updated the Ontario
Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Office of the Fairness
Commissioner of Ontario to ensure that our government stakeholders remain
confident that the examination is an objective and fair assessment of each
candidate's entry to practice competence to ensure public safety. CMTO remains committed to sharing the results of the investigation with all
stakeholders - the public, the government, schools, students and
registrants, when we are in a position to do so. In relation to other projects, the College intends to eventually move the
certification examination to an external agency, so that the College will
no longer administer exams. At the present time, there is no timeline for
this as there are several options for moving forward. The College could
simply contract with an assessment firm to run the exams in their entirety
or, the College could work with other regulators in Canada to develop an
inter-jurisdictional examination based on the IPC/PIs and offered through
an external agency. In 2013, CMTO commenced a project to adjust the exam blueprint so that
effective January 1, 2015, the exams in Ontario will be based on the
IPC/PIs, regardless of where, or by whom the examinations are administered. A very important project, which the College participated in this year, was
the initiation of a national accreditation process for all Massage Therapy
schools and programmes in the regulated provinces in Canada. I am pleased
to be able to report that a national stakeholder meeting convened in
Toronto at the beginning of October, and that Phase 1 of the project
outlined in the spring issue of TouchPoint has been completed. We are now on our way to developing a national Massage Therapy education
accreditation model. Once completed, schools in the regulated provinces
will need to meet the accreditation standard in order for the regulators to
accept their graduates to the certification exams. Stakeholders from
unregulated provinces were also invited to, and participated in, the
project as there is a great deal of interest in accreditation by
educational programmes in the unregulated provinces. What was most gratifying is that the spirit of consensus and collaboration
between the regulatory colleges and many of the associations and
educational facilities in Canada which emerged at the "Vancouver Meeting"
in March 2012 where the Interjurisdictional Practice Competencies and
Performance Indicators (IPC/PI) Project Team presented the draft IPC/PIs,
continued throughout Phase 1 of the Accreditation project. Now that the accreditation project team has completed its work, the way is
currently being prepared for the new accreditation agency to be
incorporated. Once the accreditation agency is formed, an Executive
Director and Board will be appointed. The Board will work with the
Executive Director to establish the specific criteria by which educational
programmes will be reviewed. Detailed information on the progress of
accreditation will be communicated through the agency once it is
operational. In relation to other projects, the College continues to review its internal
operations. In the 2013 spring edition of TouchPoint, I stated my intention
to improve internal College processes to ensure that they are more
transparent, fair and user friendly for registrants, and to find new ways
to help registrants comply with increasingly complex regulatory
requirements. The first department being reviewed is Registration and
Certification Services. Other projects undertaken this year include a review of the by-laws. It is
anticipated that proposed amendments will be available to stakeholders for
review in early 2014. The College installed its new database product, which will form the
platform for many other user enhancements to come, particularly in the
Quality Assurance programme. Online renewals went relatively smoothly. A
few registrants had difficulty with their passwords, as all registrants
were required to change their passwords at the beginning of September when
the new database was launched. I would like to thank all the registrants
who provided comments and solutions on ways to enhance the renewal process.
Your comments greatly helped to improve the process and the experience for
other registrants. The completion of the Principled Policy Project is extended to 2014,
because it is impacted by the By-law Review Project. Once the by-laws have
been reviewed, the policy project will be completed. Other projects which have been continuing are the Acupuncture Practice
Competencies and Performance Indicators (APC/PI) Project. The APC/PIs were
approved by Council in May 2013. Council also received a further educational session on acupuncture as
performed by Massage Therapists in June, 2013. The APC/PI project team is
continuing to meet to develop recommendations to Council regarding: 1. The criteria for school programmes to be recognized by CMTO as
programmes from which graduates meet the CMTO acupuncture PC/PIs; 2. A method for CMTO to acknowledge and identify those RMTs who provide
acupuncture within the Massage Therapy scope of practice; 3. A method for CMTO to be assured that graduates of the school programmes
have the acupuncture competencies set by the College; 4. Changes to the Peer Assessment process to assess those who provide
acupuncture. An information session for schools interested in teaching acupuncture to
massage therapists is planned for 2014. A series of video presentations
will also be posted on the College's website in 2014 to inform College
registrants about the APC/PIs and other concerns such as Peer Assessment
and billing concerns once Council has made some decisions. The College has completed a number of other activities this year which
relate to governance of the College. Some of these activities included
orientation and training of Council members, non-Council members and
committee Chairs, and completion of annual activities such as the audit. Finally, the College remains committed to the recommendations made by the
Project Team which developed the Inter-jurisdictional Practice Competencies
and Performance Indicators in March 2012: These recommendations are: 1. That the regulators each approve the PC/PI Grid (dated March 7 2012), to
replace the 2010 Inter-jurisdictional Competency Profile. (Completed) 2. That the regulators encourage and actively support the establishment of
regulation in currently non-regulated provinces, thereby expanding the
number of regulated jurisdictions. Meanwhile, that the regulators
encourage professional associations in the non-regulated provinces to
implement similar standards to those in the regulated jurisdictions.
(Activity has been undertaken in relation to this recommendation.) 3. That the spirit of national collaboration that has been created through
the project should continue. 4. That the Federation of Massage Therapy Regulatory Authorities of Canada
(FOMTRAC) establish a multi-stakeholder consortium in order to pursue
matters related to national standards for the profession. 5. That establishing an education programme accreditation process should be
the first priority in implementing the PCs/PIs. Initially this should
take place across the three regulated jurisdictions, and then be expanded
to provide for optional accreditation in non-regulated provinces. (In
progress) 6. That the current jurisdictional registration examinations be mapped to
the PIs as soon as possible. (In progress) 7. That regulators consider establishing an inter-jurisdictional
registration examination. These recommendations will guide future initiatives by the College. Corinne Filtton, RMT
Registrar & CEO From the President On October 8, I was pleased to attend the Stakeholder Workshop for the
National Accreditation Planning Committee for Massage Therapy Education
Programmes. The committee presented its recommendations to, and solicited
feedback from a diverse group of attendees from across Canada. Atten