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Here's an insight into my professional life. The numerous roles that I am involved in as a healthcare employee include being a diagnostic medical sonographer, a clinical education leader and a safety coach. 

MY ROLE AS A DIAGNOSTIC MEDICAL SONOGRAPHER

It is vital to understand in depth about my professional role as a diagnostic medical sonographer. I belong to the group of healthcare professionals where we are vigorously trained to utilize high-frequency sound waves for the creation of an image for diagnostic purposes. The images generated through sound waves are an integral part in establishing an appropriate diagnosis and a further treatment plan by the referring physician. Sonographers possess the knowledge and skills in human anatomy, physiology, pathology along with an understanding of the ultrasound physics to be able to differentiate a normal versus abnormal finding. Besides producing images, the sonographers play a crucial role in communicating with the patient and documenting their clinical symptoms. The patient’s diagnosis heavily relies on the skill possessed by the sonographer to produce high-quality images, effectively communicate and document all the relevant findings. The final interpretation is made by the radiologist who interprets the ultrasound images from a dark room and reviews the patient history, clinical symptoms and images with the ultrasound technologist for a final diagnosis (Sonography Canada, n.d.).

WHERE I FIT WITHIN THE CANADIAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM?

FEDERAL REGULATORY BODY

Sonograpy Canada

Each province in Canada has their own list of regulated health professions and associated regulatory/licensing bodies. The province that I reside in i.e. Ontario has a Regulated Health Professions Act (RHPA),  established in 1991 that governs the regulated health professions. The RHPA established regulatory colleges which have their set professional, ethical and educational standards that their members need to abide by. The Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has 23 regulated healthcare professions within Ontario and the sonography profession falls under the Medical Radiation Technologists category (Ministry of Health, n.d.).

 

 

 

 

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Sonographers  have a federal regulatory body named Sonography Canada, that represents the profession on a national level. Sonography Canada has laid out standards of the profession that need to be abided by. It also requires sonographers to focus on continuing education and obtain a professional liability insurance to protect themselves in case of complaints from clients. It is mandatory to be associated with this regulatory body to practice legally in Canada (Sonography Canada, n.d.).
 

In addition to the federal regulatory body, each of the regulated health professions in every province have their own regulatory bodies such as the College of Dental Hygienists of Nova Scotia for Dental Hygienists and the College and Association of Respiratory Therapists in Alberta for Respiratory Therapists. In my profession of sonograpy, there is a provincial regulatory body named the College of Medical Radiation Technologists of Ontario (CMRTO) The CMRTO establishes standards of safe practices for my profession in Ontario (Ministry of Health, n.d.).

REGULATORY BODIES

Regulatory bodies are governing bodies set at federal (national) and provincial levels that regulate a health profession The 23 regulated healthcare professions within Ontario have a federal and a provincial regulatory body that protects the safety of the patients as well as sets standards of the profession. It is crucial to understand the functions of the federal and provincial regulatory bodies.

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Five principles of the Federal Regulatory Body

(Image source: https://canadiem.org/is-the-canada-health-act-enough/).

  • Administration of provincial health insurance plans.

  • Planning and funding of care in hospitals and other health facilities. 

  • ​Planning of services provided by doctors and other health professionals.​

  • Planning and implementation of health promotion and public health initiatives.Negotiation of fee schedules with health professionals (Canada, 2018, The Role of Government).

Five tasks performed by the Provincial  Regulatory Body

Let's look at the federal and provincial regulatory bodies of sonography profession.

INTERPROFESSIONAL COLLABORATION: HOW MY ROLE INTERFACES WITH OTHERS?

Interprofessional collaboration is the essence of healthcare system. Different professionals trained under their field of expertise share knowledge and ideas to help in effective healthcare delivery. My role as a sonographer encompasses interactions with the administrative staff to review patient scheduling, cancellations and confirmation of urgent cases. It also involves interactions with other medical radiation technologists such as CT, MRI technologists to discuss patient findings. On an everyday basis, my primary interprofessional collaboration happens with the radiologists who review patient history and image findings with us to make an appropriate diagnosis as a team. As an imaging technologist working in a hospital setting, I collaborate with the biomedical engineers every few weeks who update us on the functioning of the latest ultrasound equipment’s and other hospital devices.

Let's join hands to achieve our common goal i.e. effective healthcare delivery

Successful Work Team

(Image Source: Media from Wix)

BENEFITS OF INTERPROFESSIONAL COLLABORATION

  • Improved patient outcomes.

  • Fewer preventable errors.

  • Reduced healthcare costs.

  • Improved relationship with other disciplines.

  • Enhanced communication which decreases workload for all healthcare professionals.

  • Minimizes duplicated effort.

  • Increased knowledge of other professions and how they work (Interprofessional collaboration improves healthcare, n.d.).

REFERENCES

Canada, H. (2018, February 26). Canada's Health Care System. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/health-care-system/reports-publications/health-care-system/canada.html

CMRTO. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.cmrto.org/

Interprofessional collaboration improves healthcare. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.reflectionsonnursingleadership.org/

Is the Canada Health Act Enough? (2015, November 29). Retrieved from https://canadiem.org/is-the-canada-health-act-enough/

Ministry of Health. (n.d.). Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991 - Health Workforce Planning Branch - Health Care Professionals - MOHLTC. Retrieved from http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/hhrsd/about/rhpa.aspxx

Sonography Canada. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://sonographycanada.ca/

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