Acupuncture Competencies
- Practice patient-centered and relationship-based care.
- Place the interests of patients and populations at the center of interprofessional health care delivery.
- Embrace the cultural diversity and individual differences that characterize patients, populations, and the health care team.
- Act with honesty and integrity in relationships with patients, families, and other team members.
- Recognize one's limitations in skills, knowledge, and abilities.
- Engage diverse healthcare professionals who complement one's own professional expertise, as well as associated resources, to develop strategies to meet specific patient care needs.
- Engage other health professionals — appropriate to the specific care situation — in shared patient-centered problem-solving.
- Obtain a comprehensive health history which includes mind-body-spirit, nutrition, and the use of conventional, complementary and integrative therapies and disciplines.
- Discuss contemporary issues in integrative practice research, including those relative to evaluating whole practices, whole systems, disciplines, patient-centered approaches and health outcomes.
- Collaborate with individuals and families to develop a personalized plan of care to promote health and well-being which incorporates integrative approaches including lifestyle counseling and the use of mind-body strategies.
- Place the interests of patients and populations at the center of interprofessional health care delivery.
- Explain the roles and responsibilities of other care providers and how the team works together to provide care.
- Organize and communicate information with patients, families, and healthcare team members in a form that is understandable, avoiding discipline-specific terminology when possible.
- Provide care to individuals and families in a culturally sensitive and patient centered way.
- Develop a trusting relationship with patients, families, and other team members.[1]
- Communicate one's role and responsibilities clearly to patients, families, and other professionals.
- Demonstrate skills in utilizing the evidence as it pertains to integrative healthcare.
- Use available evidence to inform effective teamwork and team-based practices.
- Explain the role of scientific evidence in healthcare in the context of practitioner experience and patient preferences.
- Describe common methodologies within the context of both clinical and mechanistic research, focusing on an assessment of your own field.
- Discuss contemporary issues in integrative practice research, including those relative to evaluating whole practices, whole systems, disciplines, patient-centered approaches and health outcomes.
- Analyze the research base within one's own discipline including the positive and negative interactions, indications and contraindications for one's own modalities and agents.
- Apply fundamental skills in research evaluation.
- Demonstrate evidence informed decision-making in clinical care.
- Discuss the value of evidence informed risk management planning and risk management behavior.
- Demonstrate knowledge about the major conventional, complementary and integrative health professions.
- Integrate the knowledge and experience of other professions — appropriate to the specific care situation — to inform care decisions, while respecting patient and community values and priorities/preferences for care.
- Describe the clinical services and processes of care for each discipline in a facility.
- Appraise and produce a medical record, demonstrating comprehension and interpretation of: relevant short-hand and abbreviation; common medical terminology; and standard charting and documentation in both paper and electronic medical record formats.
- Describe policy issues, management structures and emerging clinical and economic models, including how compensation strategies, incentives, and other factors are used to leverage clinical decisions.
- Facilitate behavior change in individuals, families and communities.
- Use the full scope of knowledge, skills, and abilities of available health professionals and healthcare workers to provide care that is safe, timely, efficient, effective, and equitable.
- Encourage behavior change in a non-judgmental and health promoting fashion.
- Work effectively as a member of an interprofessional team.
- Place the interests of patients and populations at the center of interprofessional health care delivery.
- Manage ethical dilemmas specific to interprofessional patient/ population centered care situations.
- Act with honesty and integrity in relationships with patients, families, and other team members.
- Maintain competence in one's own profession appropriate to scope of practice.
- Recognize one's limitations in skills, knowledge, and abilities.
- Engage diverse healthcare professionals who complement one's own professional expertise, as well as associated resources, to develop strategies to meet specific patient care needs.
- Explain the roles and responsibilities of other care providers and how the team works together to provide care.
- Use the full scope of knowledge, skills, and abilities of available health professionals and healthcare workers to provide care that is safe, timely, efficient, effective, and equitable.
- Communicate with team members to clarify each member's responsibility in executing components of a treatment plan or public health intervention.
- Forge interdependent relationships with other professions to improve care and advance learning.
- Engage in continuous professional and interprofessional development to enhance team performance.
- Choose effective communication tools and techniques, including information systems and communication technologies, to facilitate discussions and interactions that enhance team function.
- Express one's knowledge and opinions to team members involved in patient care with confidence, clarity, and respect, working to ensure common understanding of information and treatment and care decisions.
- Listen actively, and encourage ideas and opinions of other team members.
- Give timely, sensitive, instructive feedback to others about their performance on the team, responding respectfully as a team member to feedback from others.
- Use respectful language appropriate for a given difficult situation, crucial conversation, or interprofessional conflict.
- Recognize how one's own uniqueness, including experience level, expertise, culture, power, and hierarchy within the healthcare team, contributes to effective communication, conflict resolution, and positive interprofessional working relationships. [2]
- Communicate consistently the importance of teamwork in patient-centered and community-focused care.
- Describe the process of team development and the roles and practices of effective teams.
- Develop consensus on the ethical principles to guide all aspects of patient care and teamwork.
- Apply leadership practices that support collaborative practice and team effectiveness.
- Engage self and others to constructively manage disagreements about values, roles, goals, and actions that arise among healthcare professionals and with patients and families.
- Share accountability with other professions, patients, and communities for outcomes relevant to prevention and health care.
- Reflect on individual and team performance for individual, as well as team, performance improvement.
- Use process improvement strategies to increase the effectiveness of interprofessional teamwork and team-based care.
- Use available evidence to inform effective teamwork and team-based practices.
- Perform effectively on teams and in different team.
- Work in cooperation with those who receive care, those who provide care, and others who contribute to or support the delivery of prevention and health services.
- Engage in personal behaviors and self-care practices that promote optimal health and wellbeing.
- Demonstrate personal behaviors and self-care practices that reflect optimal health and wellness.
- Incorporate integrative healthcare into community settings and into the healthcare system at large.
- Embrace the cultural diversity and individual differences that characterize patients, populations, and the health care team.
- Respect the unique cultures, values, roles/responsibilities, and expertise of other health professions.
- Incorporate ethical standards of practice into all interactions with individuals, organizations and communities.
- Refer to National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM) Code of Ethics.
[1] Candian Interprofessional Health Collaborative, A National Interprofessional Competency Framework, February 2010.
[2] Adapted from Centre for Interprofessional Education, A Framework for the Development of Interprofessional Education Values and Core Competencies, Health Professionals Programs, University of Toronto.
Competency Development
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