College Connection | Fall 2025
History of Quality Assurance and Improvement
# ICYMI: Learnings available in the PRMR aggregate report
College Connection | Fall 2025
History of Quality Assurance and Improvement
From Peer Review Service to Peer Review of Medical Records, the importance of quality assurance and improvement programs to protect the public has been recognized by College Councils for decades.
In 1999, along with the Y2K scare, the release of the first BlackBerry device, and Woodstock’ 99, a pivotal moment was occurring at the College. It marked the beginning of the Professional Enhancement Program( PrEP).
This exciting new venture was designed to assist and support licensed members in meeting the challenges in their professional lives. It also acknowledged that many regulators at the time were utilizing quality assurance and improvement programs to fulfil their mandate to protect the public interest, since existing programs of registration, complaints and discipline were not believed to be sufficient. In fact, in 1999 the Human Health Professions in the province were required to have a competence assurance program in place and the College’ s legal counsel advised the College will probably be compelled to do so in the future.
The new program was structured to allow licensed members to improve their skills and knowledge in a given area, starting with medical recordkeeping, with the assistance of the Director of PrEP. The first Director of PrEP was Dr. Ed Empringham and he served in this role from 1999 to 2004.
The PrEP became a well-established, voluntary program for licensed members offering peer review of medical records, with literature and province-wide workshops to facilitate their improvement. Dr. Susan Sabatini, one of the College’ s current Practice Advisors, was a facilitator of the medical record workshops.
The Peer Review Program allowed practitioners to submit their medical records for review by trained peers and receive feedback. The peer review and the workshops became well-known and well-utilized components of the Professional Enhancement Program.
Fast forward to today and what was once the Professional Enhancement Program has evolved to a robust and active quality assurance and quality improvement program at the College. The continued evolution of the peer review component has seen several iterations and eventually was renamed the Peer Review of Medical Records( PRMR) program. The 1999 initiative that the College Council of the time began, and the program that Dr. Empringham launched and developed, has continued to serve the public interest and empower the veterinary profession to raise its own standards. It also established the College as a credible resource for licensed members by providing assistance and guidance on specific aspects of practice, ethics, and interpretation of the regulations.
As we look ahead to a new College with a mandate under the Veterinary Professionals Act to establish a statutory Quality Assurance Committee and a formal quality assurance program for veterinary technicians and veterinarians, the work of the College over the past several decades has established a strong foundation for licensed members that will ease the transition to the next iteration of quality assurance and improvement.
# ICYMI: Learnings available in the PRMR aggregate report
Through the Peer Review of Medical Records( PRMR), trained Peer Reviewers assess medical records of randomly selected and volunteer practices. The 2024 Aggregate Report identifies areas for improvement, which are relevant to all veterinary practices.
Given trends identified in the report, the following are areas you may wish to focus on in your records:
• informed client consent
• assessment & diagnosis
• history
• surgical treatment & anesthetic notes
• patient identification
• emergency contact information
• master problem list & legibility
The 2024 Aggregate Report is an informative read to assist with record-keeping.
cvo. org / prmr
Public confidence in veterinary regulation cvo. org 4