About the standard
The Establishing the Physician-Patient Relationship standard was last updated in 2015. As the healthcare landscape in Alberta is always evolving, it’s important to ensure our standards are up-to-date, reflect current language and are consistent. The standard clarifies when an ongoing physician-patient relationship is established and reasons why a physician cannot refuse to establish a physician-patient relationship.
What’s changed?
- Added a preamble to address protected classes and discrimination, as well as identifying regulated members to whom the standard would not apply;
- Expanded the section on when it is and is not acceptable to establish patient selection criteria for clarification;
- Added the acknowledgement of patient autonomy; and
- Generalized protected classes to allow for any future changes to legislation and added a definition to the glossary.
View the draft standard
For your convenience, the draft standard has clean and marked copies available.
All ResourcesYour opinion matters
Changes to CPSA’s Standards of Practice impact your day-to-day practice. Your feedback is important to us, as it helps us develop clear, reasonable expectations and helpful, applicable resources. We appreciate the time you took and the input you provided.
CPSA regulated members, partner organizations, other healthcare professionals and Albertans were invited to provide feedback from June 5 to July 5, 2023.
Anonymized feedback will be considered by Council at their September 2023 meeting. Once amendments are finalized and approved by Council, members will be notified by email and The Messenger newsletter.
We respect your privacy
All feedback is subject to CPSA’s Privacy Statement. CPSA reviews all comments before publication to ensure there is no offensive language, personal attacks or unsubstantiated allegations.