Clinician's Commentary on O'Donovan et al.

Nationally and internationally, physiotherapy regulators are charged with the statutory responsibility to ensure public protection through the appropriate regulation of physiotherapy practice. A common responsibility of regulatory organizations is ensuring that registrants remain competent beyond entry to practice. They achieve this by offering programmes that are substantially similar, although they bear a variety of names, such as continuing competence, quality assurance, and quality management. (In this commentary, we use quality assurance.) These programmes also vary in their methodologies: More structured programmes commonly use formal methods such as examinations, practice visits, and mandatory participation in continuing education sessions, whereas less structured programmes may use professional portfolios or other methods to support reflection on practice and quality improvement.