Newsletter: July 2017

I hope this newsletter finds you all well and keeping warm.

We’ve had a productive few months with significant progress on two of our major projects.

You should have all received an invitation to provide your thoughts on our recertification review. This consultation phase is the first in what we expect will be two consultations dealing with recertification.

As you will know, recertification is the framework, or system that we use to ensure our practitioners are competent and fit to practise. As such, it is fundamental to all that we do, and affects each and every practitioner who is registered in New Zealand, or who wants to register in New Zealand.

When you think of recertification, continuing professional development is probably the first thing that springs to mind for many. However, recertification is much more than that. We can see recertification as a series of connection points between the Council and each practitioner throughout their practising career—the first connection point is when a practitioner first registers with the Council, and then they will continue to connect with us at least yearly when they renew their practising certificate. The four-year CPD cycle represents more connection points, while the random questionnaires and audits that a percentage of practitioners are required to do each year represent further opportunities for us to connect with our practitioners and evaluate their competence and fitness to practise.

The Council also has other tools, such as competence reviews and competence programmes, to use when it has concerns about a practitioner’s competence.

All of these components form our overall framework and the consultation process we are currently undertaking is a “big picture” look at the whole lot—we want to know what you think is working, what is not working, what ideas you have about improving the system. We strongly encourage you to come along to one of our forums or join one of our webinars to hear our thoughts on the system and potential for improvement, ask questions and join the conversation.

The second big project that is now well under way is the upgrade of our information technology (IT) system. This has involved a wide-ranging review of all our IT systems and will result in new workflow processes and online capability for our practitioners. This will allow practitioners to apply for registration, change their personal information and renew annual practising certificates (APCs) online—which we know most of our practitioners want.

Our building displacement set the IT project back by some months, so we will not meet our target of completing the first online APC renewal process in September. However, we expect to implement the new IT system by November, meaning 2017 graduates will be the first practitioners to register online. We will be conducting the first full APC renewal online in March for dental hygienists, dental therapists, oral health therapists, dental technicians and clinical dental technicians.

Enjoy the newsletter—there is lots of information in it, including updates on our consideration of a new practice standard for advanced and new areas of practice and our recent engagement survey.

Marie Warner