Practice Hours Definitions

Practice Hours

The College of Physiotherapists of Ontario is responsible for ensuring members maintain current knowledge and skills to practice safely and competently. The Registration Regulation measures this by making sure that anyone with an Independent Practice Certificate of Registration has worked at least 1,200 practice hours over the previous 5-year period.

Each year at annual renewal you must declare the number of hours you practiced the previous year. Following each renewal period, the College determines who has not met the 1,200 practice hours requirement and we follow up with each physiotherapist personally to discuss potential next steps.

Please note that it is not necessary to have the specific job title of Physiotherapist or Physical Therapist or PT to claim practice hours. Practice hours can be claimed from anywhere in the world.

Practice Hours can include things like:

Hours worked that you have been paid for (clinical settings, consultation, research, administration, academia or sales)
Professional activity/development hours (maximum 30 per year). Professional activity hours include volunteer activity which requires the use of physiotherapy theory and knowledge, continuing education hours and/or participation

*Please be aware that you cannot claim practice hours for any time when you are on vacation, sick leave or on other leaves of absence.

Definitions

Direct Professional Services
Proportion of the average practice hours spent per week on direct health professional services across all practice sites (e.g. conducting tests, patient care, health promotion, dispensing/building/repairing health apparatuses). This excludes clinical education hours (providing professional services while teaching).

Administration
Proportion of the average practice hours spent per week across all practice sites on administration in profession.

Teaching
Proportion of the average practice hours spent per week across all practice sites on teaching to prepare students for a health profession (e.g. post-secondary) excluding clinical education (providing professional services while teaching).

Research
Proportion of the average practice hours spent per week across all practice sites conducting research in profession.

Clinical Education
Proportion of the average practice hours spent per week on clinical education only (e.g. providing direct professional services while teaching) across all practice sites.

All Other Areas
Proportion of the average practice hours spent per week across all practice sites on all other areas in profession excluding direct professional services, teaching, research and administration.

Number of Practice Weeks in the Past 12 Months:
Number of practice weeks in the past 12 months across all practice settings excluding vacation, on-call time and sick and leave time greater than one week. Note that at least 1 practice day in a week constitutes a week of practice.

Average Number of Weekly Practice Hours in the Past 12 Months:
Average number of practice hours per week across all practice sites. Hours indicated are inclusive of all practice hours (e.g. travel time to various settings, preparation and service provision, time spent working during on-call hours).

Hours should exclude any volunteer, extra-curricular time outside of the profession or any on-call hours where the individual was not working.

Contact the Renewal Team

Questions or concerns? Please contact our Renewal Team at renewal@collegept.org
or at 1-800-583-5885 ext. 222 or 416-591-3828 ext. 222.

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