Healthcare delivery in Canada is patient-focused and inter-professional. Sound communication skills help health practitioners meet legal and ethical requirements related to documenting patient interviews, assessments, care plans, and treatment outcomes. These skills also support safe, effective, and professional practice through communication across language, cultural, generational, and situational barriers.

Over the last 15 years many health-specific language assessments have been developed and received by IEHPs and their regulators as a relevant and reliable way to demonstrate language proficiency for professional practice. The proposed OCECCA would consolidate these specialized language and communication testing and assessment services to help increase efficiency in this area and ensure province-wide access.

OCECCA would offer valid, objective, and responsive language assessment that would help to ensure that qualified IEHPs achieve licensure, while at the same time giving employers, regulatory bodies, and the public confidence that reliable measures have been used in the language assessment step of the registration/licensure pathway.