Medical Matters: what’s new in Continuing Competence

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See what’s on the go in Continuing Competence and learn more about the team’s new Assistant Registrar, Dr. Caffaro

By Dr. Michael Caffaro, Assistant Registrar, Continuing Competence

Since joining CPSA in 2015, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with several teams that support many elements of health regulation. I began my regulatory career as Complaints Director in Professional Conduct before moving to lead the Registration team. Now, after 10 years at CPSA, I am pleased to be leading our Continuing Competence department as of January 2025.

These departments play very different but equally important roles in the regulatory world. Professional Conduct manages complaints regarding regulated members, taking an educational approach to resolving concerns wherever possible. In Registration, the focus is on ensuring physicians and physician assistants have the necessary education, training and practice experience prior to providing care to patients in Alberta. Continuing Competence almost acts as a bridge between my two previous roles: the Competence team provides support and direction to regulated members as they pursue their lifelong commitment to learning and improvement, ensuring practices remain strong and patients receive good care.

Before moving into regulation, I spent 22 years practising as a rural family physician. While I have long understood and upheld the regulated member’s responsibility to maintain and improve our skills and knowledge, the regulatory side of medicine is obviously very different from clinical practice. I am still learning the extent of the support and guidance CPSA’s Continuing Competence team provides to the profession.

I’ve joined the Competence team at a time when a lot of interesting and important work is going on. The Physician Practice Improvement Program, more commonly known as PPIP, reaches an important milestone this year, with the first five-year cycle ending in 2025. This means that any physician whose current continuing professional development (CPD) cycle ends in 2025 must also have their first cycle of three PPIP activities completed by Dec. 31.

Since PPIP launched in 2021, almost 80% of physicians have self-reported their completion of all three PPIP activities, which is an amazing accomplishment. If your CPD cycle ends this year but you’re unsure of how many activities you have left to complete, log into your CPSA Portal to review your 2025 PPIP Report.

Another big project has been implementing changes to registration and assessment processes for physicians with training from approved jurisdictions. The Accelerated Jurisdiction Route pilot program, which included scheduled Continuing Competence assessments, has transitioned to the Approved Jurisdiction Route after successful outcomes were achieved. This enables the transfer of the physician assessment tool back to the Registration Assessment team for integration in their workflow. This not only benefits the Registration and Assessment team by keeping the work closer to home, but it also increases capacity for Continuing Competence team members to provide support to those regulated members needing our services.

This increased capacity is great news because, at the May Council meeting, CPSA Council approved the transition of the MCC 360 copyright and assessment tool back to CPSA from the Medical Council of Canada. MCC 360 was originally created and launched in Alberta as the Physician Achievement Review; the repatriation of this program represents an opportunity for program enhancement and continued benefit for regulated members and their practices.

In other news, the Health & Practice Conditions Monitoring (HPCM) program continues to refine their processes and recently launched new pages on CPSA’s website, with information about what a physician should expect when they report a health condition to CPSA, details about practice conditions, blood-borne viral infections and more. Plus, our Infection, Prevention & Control (IPAC) team continues to promote clinic registration and encourage safe care in medical clinics through IPAC and medical device reprocessing requirements.

These are just a few of the diverse, data-driven Competence programs we have at CPSA, but rest assured that all of our Competence programs have the same goal: supporting physicians in providing safe, high-quality care for patients in Alberta.

Want to learn more about CPSA’s Continuing Competence programs?

CPSA’s 2024 Annual Report was recently published online, and it includes a story about Continuing Competence and our focus on quality improvement and quality assurance. Read it here:

The last six months have been a time of tremendous personal learning. I am inspired by both the dedication of the Continuing Competence team and the regulated members who continue to demonstrate their commitment to their patients through ongoing practice improvements. Thank you for everything you do.

I hope everyone can take some time to enjoy the summer weather here in Alberta. Whether it’s relaxing in the sun (or shade), hiking a mountain or something in between, make sure to take some time for yourself over the next few months. I’ll be happily cycling until that first snowflake hits the ground, at which point I’ll change to winter (fat) tires and get right back out there!

Dr. Michael Caffaro has been a CPSA team member since 2015 and is currently the Assistant Registrar in the Continuing Competence department. Prior to assuming this role in January 2025, Dr. Caffaro spent 4 years as the Assistant Registrar, Registration, and 6 years as the Assistant Registrar and Complaints Director in Professional Conduct. Dr. Caffaro is a University of Alberta graduate and, before joining CPSA, spent 22 years as a family physician in Hinton, AB.