A recent report to the Ministry of Health details CNO’s commitment to public safety in 2021. Now in its second year, the health Ministry created the College Performance Measurement Framework (CPMF) report to help improve accountability, transparency and oversight of Ontario’s 26 health regulatory colleges, including CNO. Among the many activities we highlight is our role as a partner in the system addressing the needs of the health care sector during the pandemic.
“The second iteration of the CPMF highlights our commitment to continuously evolve our regulatory processes,” says Anne Coghlan, CNO’s Executive Director and CEO. “Over this reporting year, CNO worked hard to meet public expectations and the demands of an evolving regulatory environment.”
In 2021, CNO demonstrated strong relations with system partners responding to health human resource needs. As a result of all this work, we registered 12,449 new nurses as Registered Practical Nurses, Registered Nurses and Nurse Practitioners (NPs) in 2021. As well, we worked with the Ministry of Long-Term Care to address staffing in the long-term care sector. We also collaborated with stakeholders to launch a new registered practical nurse exam, the REx-PN, which meets current evidence and best practices.
The CPMF report shows the many ways CNO supported Ontario’s pandemic response. For instance, we helped ensure nurses understood how their scope of practice was affected by changes in provincial legislation, as they continually adapted to working in changing conditions. We also kept nurses informed of accountabilities supporting public health measures, workplace vaccination policies, and provided practice resources and tools for supporting mental health.
Self-scoring in seven areas
The CPMF report tells the Ministry how well CNO did its job as a public safety regulator in 2021. Every year, each college scores its activities in seven different areas: governance; resources; system partner; information management; regulatory policies; suitability to practice; and measurement, reporting and improvement. According to the Ministry, these are the most critical areas in which colleges effectively serve and protect the public interest.
Within the seven areas are 51 different measures for colleges to report changes and improvements in their practices. This is 13 more measures than in the previous year due to additions for diversity, equity and inclusion; risk assessment; and technology. As part of our report, we highlight areas in which we performed well, plus areas for improvement and commitments for doing better.
In the 2021 report, CNO reported meeting or partially meeting 48 out of the 51 measures. We told the government about modernizing our applicant assessment program. We highlighted our Strategic Plan’s role informing our annual budget and assessing operational requirements to meet the province’s human resource needs. We also pointed out our public Privacy Policy for managing personal information.
Like last year, CNO reported that we did not meet three of the measures. In these cases, we told the Ministry about upcoming activities to address these. For example, a third-party assessor hasn’t yet evaluated Council’s effectiveness, which is planned for 2022. As well, while CNO’s current by-laws do not include cooling-off periods (a requirement of the measure), implementing our Governance Vision will include an overall review of by-laws and feature cooling-off periods. In the meantime, we are continuing to advance our diversity, equity and inclusion plan, and develop an evaluation framework for our Council.
The report provides opportunities for pointing out areas for CNO to improve. When it comes to regulatory policies, CNO will build on existing work modernizing our standards this year. This initiative will support the evolving health care needs of patients and the dynamic nature of the nursing profession. We’re also building a robust performance and evaluation framework associated with our Strategic Plan as we implement our strategic pillars and public-safety outcomes.
See the full 2021 College Performance Measurement Report