15 September 2022
BACK TO BASICS: HOW THE STANDARDS ARE SET
In the run-up to complete our CPD requirements, the reasoning and value of continuing professional development can get a little lost in the maths and practicalities. But really, the fact that practitioners are held to these stringent standards helps define the enviable healthcare landscape of Australia.
There is plenty of work behind the scenes that goes into creating and reviewing the CPD standards of the 16 health professions regulated in Australia, including dental practice. A spokesperson from the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (Ahpra) explained the process to the News Bulletin:
"Continuing professional development is how registered health practitioners maintain, improve and broaden their knowledge, expertise and competence. It also develops the personal and professional qualities required throughout their professional lives.
"National Boards set the minimum CPD requirements for each profession after input from stakeholders, the profession, professional associations and the community via extensive public consultation. To ensure CPD requirements and the standard are contemporary and fit for purpose, National Boards review their CPD standard as required, generally every five years. Any changes to the standard are approved by Health Ministers. The CPD standard for dental practitioners is currently in the early stages of review.
"National Boards generally adopt a risk-based approach when reviewing a registration standard. They draw on their experience with the existing registration standards and other sources of information, including research, other published documents and the approach of other National Boards and comparable regulators."
Dental Board of Australia Chair Dr Murray Thomas adds: "It's important that a dental practitioner regularly participates in CPD to make sure they maintain, develop, update and enhance their knowledge, skills and performance. This continual development encouraged through CPD ensures our profession remains contemporary and helps dental practitioners deliver appropriate and safe care.
"The Board expects dental practitioners to know their scope of practice and not practise beyond the range of their training, qualifications, experience and competence. This is to ensure the safety of the public, so consumers can have confidence in the dental profession when seeking oral healthcare."
From the point of view of the ADA, providing CPD materials and resources is not just a matter of adequate registration, but a matter of pride in being a quality practitioner in a profession that famously never stops learning.
"Receiving a degree in dentistry does not make you a dentist," says Dr Jenny Ball, the Director of Continuing Professional Development at ADAWA. "It gives you the foundation on which to build yourself to become a dentist. On personal reflection and in discussion with others, that's when you become a really good dentist after about 15 years of experience.
"The only way to improve is via CPD, and there is lots of CPD out there. You know, if you are involved with CPD presented via your state Branch or the Federal body, that a huge amount of effort has gone into considering the content, the speaker and the high quality of how you receive the event – whether it be via The Dental Files, a webinar, a journal article or a face-to-face event. The ADA has a reputation to uphold, and we do it very well, and we do it consistently."
CARRYING ON: THE PANDEMIC YEARS
On 1 December 2019, when the three-year cycle began for us to put together a plan for our continuing professional development (known more or less fondly as CPD) we had no idea what lay in store over the famously unprecedented pandemic-bound years of 2020, 2021 and 2022.
In the experience of our membership, suddenly the well-worn learning pathways and multi-day events represented by Congress, seminars and live presentations – always such mainstays on our CPD tally sheets – had to be rethought and replaced, while webinars, hybrid digital/live events and multimedia video-led presentations found new popularity.
As in so many history-making eras, technology led the way to carry on in new and innovative ways. In August 2020, in a move that really helped to shape the 'new normal', CPD streaming capabilities were added to the ADA Connect App to allow learning to happen wherever a member is located. In March 2021, the ADA FDI World Dental Congress was announced as a virtual event, finally taking place in September last year as an impressive and quite new on- demand virtual-live hybrid, bringing together live hosting with a virtual exhibition and more than 200 scientific sessions that translated into more than 150 hours of CPD content. This furnished members with the all-important influx of intensive CPD learnings that is always expected from events of this magnitude on the professional calendar.
Of course, there is more to the CPD cycle than simply a total three-year period. Dental practitioners are required to complete a minimum of 60 hours of CPD activities over a three-year CPD cycle, but that cycle itself covers three registration periods.
The Dental Board of Australia (the Board) has previously acknowledged that the COVID-19 emergency has meant that some practitioners may have had trouble fully meeting CPD requirements. In some cases, CPD events or practitioners' leave was cancelled.
Thus, for the past two years, the Board has committed to taking no action if dental practitioners have not been able to complete CPD for the registration period ending 30 November. Given the triennial CPD cycle for the dental profession covers the period from 1 December 2019 to 30 November 2022, this commitment will apply to the CPD cycle as a whole, ending on 30 November 2022.
"However, given the importance of CPD and the increasing availability of flexible and COVID-safe CPD options, including virtual activities, we encourage dental practitioners to participate in CPD activities," says a spokesperson for Ahpra. "If possible, practitioners should meet the requirements before renewing their registration by 30 November 2022. COVID-related learning activities can also be counted toward CPD."
GOING DIGITAL: ONLINE LEARNING
For many practitioners, the clearest way to achieve this participation has been – and continues to be – turning to online resources. The ADA's own online CPD portal, containing more than 900 items and hundreds of hours of peer-reviewed content, recorded almost 88,000 plays by members, with 75% of those playing out the entire item, plus more than 45,000 hours consumed during the 2021-22 financial year.
In fact, from the point of view of the ADA's learning and professional development team, the steady and even increased numbers of members accessing the CPD Portal showed that lockdown periods provided an ideal time to brush up on professional skills and education!
"Over the last three years we have hit some amazing benchmarks, as COVID impacted the ability to go out and practise, or go to events," says Kim Wilcox, Learning and Professional Development Offcer for the Federal ADA. "We had one live webinar that 'nearly broke the internet', where 9,000 people tuned in all at once! Thank goodness for our IT guys who kept it all together for us.
"For the financial year 2021-22 we had more than 6,185 individual feedback emails relating to CPD items watched or listened to. This is not compulsory to do, so the feedback number is a significant 'touchpoint' from our members."
Graphs depicting member access to the Portal have also showed a relatively even rate, telling the team that members have been organised and steady in logging their CPD hours.
The most popular CPD Portal items accessed continue to be webinars, with the top piece played more than 4,000 times:
1. Cracked Teeth (Part 1 of our very successful series) with Dr Shalin Desai and Dr Agnes Lai – 4,128 plays;
2. Rubber Dam Demonstration with Prof. Abbott – 3,711 plays;
3. Deciduous Pulpotomies (Part 2: Table Top Demonstration) with Drs Juliette Scott and Peter Norton – 2,872 plays.
These items show impressive longevity, with two of these items (Cracked Teeth and Deciduous Pulpotomies) coming from series commissioned by the ADA as big- ticket, long-planned clinical/patient-based productions.
The Rubber Dam Demonstration item exemplifies a situation where the demonstration of a technique was perfect to repurpose for member needs during the advent of COVID-19. Prof. Abbott, a featured speaker in 2021's ADA FDI World Dental Congress, never thought at the time (2018) how needed this technique would become. He is due to present at Congress once more in 2023.
Other online items are also showing steady popularity with members, such as the Dental Files and PharmaAdvice podcasts, A Case in Point short patient-based recordings, and the series items such as the Simply Ceramics and Early Childhood Caries series, all being eagerly consumed by ADA members. The panel-led webinar recorded in April, featuring Dr Patrick Meaney, Dr Scott Davis and Dr David Curnow discussing the new Schedule & Glossary, is also very popular.
ADA BRANCHES
Excitingly, face-to-face and live training events have returned, with ADA Branches offering full calendars of events in the final lead-up to the end of the CPD cycle, with both clinical and non-clinical topics on the agenda, from one-hour lectures on business management through to multi-day clinical intensives and masterclasses.
Branches also have their own Centres for training, online video libraries and more, adding up to a wealth of knowledge to add to your CPD plan.
This article was first published in the ADA's News Bulletin, September 2022.
