Assessment ensures that physicians meet the required standards for safe, competent practice. We do this through workplace-based assessments (WBA) — assessing a physician’s performance in their actual clinical setting — as a form of quality assurance. The College oversees several programs that assess physicians on the job to verify they are ready and able to provide high-quality care in Nova Scotia.
What we do
- Ensure safe practice: We conduct assessments of physicians in the workplace to make sure their clinical skills, decision-making, and professional behaviour meet the expected standards of care in Nova Scotia. These assessments help protect patients by ensuring physicians are practice-ready and providing safe, effective, patient-centred care.
- Quality assurance: This means the focus is on measuring and confirming competence. Our assessments verify that physicians maintain the competence required for licensure, especially when they are new to the province or returning to practice.
- Workplace-based assessments: All our programs use WBA methods. For example, supervision and practice-ready assessments are forms of WBA — they involve a College-approved assessor or supervisor observing a physician’s actual practice over a period of time and completing structured assessment tools. Even shorter assessments or one-time evaluations are conducted in real clinical scenarios whenever possible.