The Healthcare Communications Association (HCA) has long been committed to supporting professional development, offering a range of courses and best-practice sharing to help healthcare communication professionals to develop their knowledge and skills. However, until 2022 the knowledge and skills areas to focus on, the standard to which this should be done, and the ongoing commitment needed to maintain standards, had not been agreed within healthcare communications.
As the leading professional association in healthcare communications, the HCA has now published Advancing healthcare communications: HCA CPD standards, following consultation with its members. This sets out a clear CPD framework, establishing the importance of CPD for our profession, and putting us on a par with the many other professions, such as legal, financial, and medical, that have CPD frameworks in place.
To support the implementation and recognise those whose reach and exceed these professional development standards, the HCA has also established a CPD certification. The HCA CPD Standards Certification will be awarded to healthcare communicators who reach the recommended standards annually and recipients will be eligible to display a HCA ‘certified to CPD standards’ logo on their email signature, CV, etc.
To help practitioners record their CPD activity and submit for certification, the HCA has developed the MyCPD.healthcare platform as part of this website. Available to members in the My Area under MyCPD and to non-members using the MyCPD.healthcare url following registration with the website. This intuitive platform is easy to use to record CPD achievements and delivers an automated submission for manager approval and HCA certification.
Under Resources you can find the CPD Standards Framework, summaries for printing or digital viewing and a ‘lunch and learn’ side slide resource to introduce the CPD Standards to your teams. In the Videos section you can also view the presentation that launched the HCA CPD Standards in February 2022.