It continues to be my privilege as Council Chair of the Alberta College of Dental Hygienists (ACDH) to present the 2024 Annual Report, as approved by Council. This report covers the registration year of November 1, 2023 to October 31, 2024, and the financial year of April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025.

April 1, 2024, we embarked on an ambitious new 2024-2027 Strategic Plan, which will guide the College’s priorities for the next three years, with a completion date of March 31, 2027. This plan outlines a clear direction forward for the College to be a leader in a changing regulatory environment.

We championed four strategic priorities (see page 9 of the report) to continue strengthening our regulation of dental hygiene in Alberta. They are:

• Advance the continuing competence program to support registrants in enhancing their delivery of safe, high-quality care.
• Ensure registration practices continue to prioritize public safety while effectively responding to legislative changes.
• Engage in collaborative and innovative approaches to drive regulatory advancements.
• Demonstrate our commitment to equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility.

With the roll-out of this new plan came the successful conclusion of the 2020-2024 strategic plan. The foundation of the 2020-2024 plan centred around four priorities:

• Embrace leading regulatory practices to protect the public.
• Identify and strengthen productive relationships with stakeholders.
• Ensure a strong understanding amongst stakeholders of the College’s regulatory role in the healthcare system.
• Achieve effective governance and strong leadership to support our mandate.

Reflecting on the past registration year, there are many initiatives the College has undertaken and milestones we have met to meet these priorities, and to create the best path forward for a successful 2024-2027 Strategic Plan.

We’ve continued to update our IT systems, including enhancements to the registrant portal, and made the strategic move to a fully online registration process. We have also managed ongoing modernization of College processes including the pilot of automated renewal approvals to improve and streamline the efficiency of the overall renewal process.

With the Continuing Competence Program (CCP) now established in a Standard of Practice, and with its strong presence in our Strategic Plan, there’s been a lot of time and fundamental work dedicated to the CCP.

This is invaluable work that we will leverage as we redesign the program in 2026 and aim to launch the new program in 2027. The work so far has included completing a provincial and national environmental scan of continuing competence and quality assurance programs to implement best practices and tools to support registrant competence. We also improved how we collect data to better inform our decisions by performing an audit of all programs. 

ACDH has continued to look for opportunities to collaborate with other regulators and to strengthen government relationships. We conducted an environmental scan of registration legislation across Canada for other dental hygiene professions, followed by a survey to key stakeholders to inform them of our findings and to verify the information we found.

And as we aim to achieve effective governance and strong leadership – with the vision to proactively advance regulation and protect the public through the provision of safe, quality oral health for all Albertans – we remain focused on strengthening the governance structure, including the alignment to best practices. We’ve also kept our ongoing commitment to prioritize equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility through the delivery of tailored education sessions to our Council.

The successful implementation of the new strategic plan, the handful of significant accomplishments noted above (with many more), and the successful day-to-day operations over the last year couldn’t be done without the unwavering efforts and dedication of our Council, Committee members, and the College staff. 

And with these unwavering efforts year-over-year, Council has worked hard with the Registrar and CEO and College staff to keep costs low for registrants, with the registration fees staying the same since the 2017/2018 registration year. Thank you for your continued hard work and dedication.