During its March 24, 2025, meeting, ACOT’s Council voted in favour of acknowledging OTs’ ability to establish diagnoses once they have successfully met specific requirements, most notably the completion of a course of study on diagnosis that is approved by Council. The course is intended to contribute to registrants’ competence in establishing diagnoses, with emphasis on risk management and client safety. OTs who complete the course and meet the additional requirements (e.g., years of practice, good standing) to be outlined in a forthcoming ACOT Standard of Practice, may then apply for authorization to establish and communicate a diagnosis within occupational therapy practice.
A diagnosis course advisory committee with associated working groups have been guiding this work since May 2025. Committee members have varying years of practice and are from a variety of areas of practice as follows:
| Name | Representing | Area of Practice | Location | Years in Practice |
| Camille Bailey | OT in Practice | Private practice, pre-K and schools, First Nations and areas outside of Edmonton and Calgary | Treaty 6, Treaty 8, Northern and Central Alberta | 15 |
| Marianne Baird | ACOT CEO & Registrar | Regulation | Edmonton | 14 |
| Suzette Bremault-Phillips | U of A OT Dept | Professor, Rehab. Medicine | Edmonton | 30+ |
| Arwen Caines | ACOT Council and OT in Practice | Regulation, Autism | Calgary | 14 |
| Bronte Diduck | OT in Practice | Forensic Mental Health | Edmonton | 4 |
| Shaniff Esmail | U of A OT Dept | Professor, Rehab. Medicine | Edmonton | 35+ |
| Ceira Golberg | OT in Practice | Continuing Care, Palliative, Subacute, Secure Dementia and Complex | Edmonton | 12 |
| Rupal Jain | OT in Practice | Department of National Defense and Certified Hand Therapist | Edmonton and Area | 11 |
| Chelsea Jones | OT in Practice | Post Doctoral Fellow, HiMARC | Edmonton | 15 |
| Heidi Knupp | ACOT Council and OT in Practice | Regulation, Return to Work, Case Management | Edmonton | 17 |
| Adam Kucharski | OT in Practice | Medical Legal and Private Practice | Calgary and Edmonton | 9 |
| Jennifer Krysa | U of A OT Dept | Physical Medicine & Rehab; OT Educator | Edmonton | 30 |
| Jennifer MacKendrick Weber | ACOT Staff | Regulation | Calgary | 26 |
| Bernadette Martin | U of A Continuing Professional Education | Rehab Medicine Education | Edmonton | 40+ |
In addition to the people noted above, ACOT has contracted with a psychometrician, Dr. John Wickett of Wickett Measurement Systems, to assist with ensuring the diagnosis course assessment components and exam development are completed in a systematic and defensible manner.
Dr. Miini Teng has been contracted for the course development; Miini is an occupational therapist and resident physician with a focus on interprofessional education, diagnostic reasoning, and scope-safe clinical practice. Her work centers on developing competency-based training that supports safe assessment and diagnostic processes within regulated rehabilitation settings, aligned with applicable provincial legislation and college standards.
ACOT has also contracted with an Information Consultant to inform our literature review and environmental scan search strategies.
The diagnosis course advisory committee has been meeting monthly since May 2025, with meetings focusing on the following topics:
| Meeting Date | Meeting Focus |
| May 26, 2025 | Terms of Reference |
| June 24, 2025 | Finalize Terms of Reference, high level work plan, begin exploring how we will define diagnosis. Consider potential unintended consequences of our work. |
| July 24, 2025 | Defining our literature review and environmental scan focus. Considering effects of this work on everyday practice of OTs, effects on equity denied groups, and the effects on rural/remote practice. |
| August 29, 2025 | Background on Council’s decision to acknowledge ability of OTs to diagnose within a risk management framework. Continued discussion on literature review and environmental scan focus. |
| September 25, 2025 | Provide input on draft diagnosis practice statement and on the draft communications/risk management/change management plan. Discuss policies and procedures that will need to be developed. |
| October 28, 2025 | Review draft course development proposal. |
| December 2, 2025 | Course prerequisites; who will and won’t need to take the course. What is changing and what is staying the same in practice. Differentiating between participating in establishing a diagnosis and taking responsibility for establishing and communicating a diagnosis. |
| January 13, 2026 | Sample exercise of weighting core learning modules for exam purposes. |
| February 26, 2026 | Providing input on the course outline. |
Once the important step of validating and updating the course outline is completed with ACOT’s Council and the Committee, the course development will follow accordingly. ACOT will continue to provide updates about our progress on the diagnosis course development.
Roll out of the diagnosis course for OTs, and the related changes in OT practice requires additional consultation and development of standards proportional to the potential system-level impacts. Consultations with a broad range of key partners are being planned for the coming months, and ACOT has recently learned that these consultations must be completed before the diagnosis course can be piloted. As a result, the timeline for piloting the course will need to be adjusted; although the original aim was to begin piloting in spring/summer of 2026, this is now on hold pending completion of the required consultations and development of the related standard of practice.
Keep an eye on your eNews for opportunities to participate in the upcoming consultations!