Acupuncture Competencies

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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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