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BCCOHP’s Quality Assurance (QA) Program helps ensure the public is well-served by competent oral healthcare professionals.
To ensure continuing competence, dental therapists are required to complete a minimum number of continuing education credits and other profession-specific requirements as part of their QA Program cycles.
Note: BCCOHP’s QA program will be enhanced in order to promote career-long hands-on learning, encourage collaboration among oral health professionals and improve treatment outcomes for patients. Harmonization of the quality assurance program and other individual requirements will be a priority after September 1, 2022.
Current QA Program
BCCOHP’s QA program has two main components:
Your QAP cycle is assigned at the date of registration and runs on a three-year calendar cycle.
Below is a summary of QA requirements for dental therapists. General information about continuing education and continuous practice can be found in the sidebar.
Following are descriptions of the categories under which dental therapists may earn CE credits and the maximum number of credits allowed in each category over a three-year QAP cycle.
Category/ Modality | Description | Max Credits Per Cycle |
Dental therapists | ||
Clinical Dental | Relates directly to the provision of patient care and treatment | No limit |
Dental Practice Management | Relates directly to the operation and management of a dental practice (does not include courses related to personal financial or retirement planning, or marketing products or services to patients) | 18 |
Dental/ | First aid, CPR, ACLS, and management of dental/medical emergencies | 12 |
Non-Clinical Dental | Topics that are applicable to the registrant’s practice of dentistry | 12 |
Other Dental | E.g. CDA modules, lecturers/ presenters/mentors/supervisors, university/college courses, examinations, publication authorship, and learning contract/directed study | Variable See pages 6-7 of Continuing Education Requirements (PDF) document |
Note: There are credit limits associated with the various CE learning categories and modalities (e.g. live lecture versus self-study). For more information, read the Continuing Education Requirements (PDF) document.
Dental therapists are encouraged to review the eligibility criteria for continuing education credits, which is available here.
Dental therapists are required to maintain a minimum number of hours of mandatory continuing education (CE) in order to renew registration to practise each year.
Your QAP cycle is assigned at the date of registration and runs on a three-year calendar cycle, e.g. January 1, 2020 – December 31, 2022.
Minimum required credits during a three-year QAP cycle: 75 credits (one hour = 1 credit)
Detailed requirements, including course eligibility, are outlined in the Continuing Education Requirements (PDF) document.
Dental therapists must achieve at least 900 practice hours within their QAP cycle in order to renew their registration as a practising dental therapist.
Acceptable continuous practice hours include the provision of clinical dental treatment, employment as a dental educator or dental researcher, or enrollment in a dental education program.
To meet the continuous practice requirement, dental therapists must work approximately 25 hours per month (within their QAP cycle).