The Regulation of Health Professionals in Ontario
Established in 1991, the Ontario Regulated Health Professions Act (RHPA) is a comprehensive framework that provides consistent guidelines and principles for health regulatory colleges to regulate health professions in Ontario. Major principles of RHPA include:
- Advancing the public interest
- Protecting the public from harm and unqualified, incompetent or unfit providers
- Promoting high quality health care services and accountability of health care professionals
- Providing patients/ clients access to health care professions of their choice
- Achieving equality and consistency by requiring all regulated health professions to adhere to the same purposes, objects, duties, procedures and public interest principles
- Treating individual patients/clients and health professionals in an equitable manner
- Providing flexibility in roles of individual professions and room for evolution of professions through broad scopes of practice
The RHPA is employed by 21 health regulatory colleges in Ontario, regulating over 20 health professions which includes:
- Audiology
- Speech language pathology
- Nursing
- Optometry
- Pharmacy
- Dentistry
- Chiropody (and Podiatry)
- Dental technology
- Denturism
- Massage Therapy
- Medical Radiation Technology
- Chiropractic
- Dietetics
- Medical Laboratory Technology
- Midwifery
- Occupational Therapy
- Respiratory Therapy
- Dental Hygiene
- Psychology
- Physiotherapy
- Opticianry
- Medicine
Additional Heath Professions to be added to be regulated under the RHPA include:
- Traditional Chinese Medicine
- Naturopathy
- Kinesiology
- Psychotherapy
- Homeopathy
(Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, 2007)
