What is CPSA?

The College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA) is the province's medical regulator. Beyond licensing physicians, CPSA regulates the settings where medical care happens outside hospitals: it accredits Non-Hospital Surgical Facilities (NHSFs) and runs infection prevention and control (IPAC) assessments of community clinics, including reviews of how clinics reprocess reusable medical devices.

For a facility, CPSA is the audience your documentation has to convince. Its published standards define what accreditation and inspection look at, and its assessors verify practice against those standards through documentation review and on-site visits. CPSA also publishes self-assessment tools facilities can use to check themselves between visits.

Every province has an equivalent College — CPSBC in British Columbia, CPSS in Saskatchewan, CPSM in Manitoba, CPSO in Ontario — each running its own accreditation or inspection program on the same core themes.