The Profile-Based Classification System: Working Professional Profiles

There are three classifications for working professionals (health science professionals who aren’t in a supervisory or leadership position) in the profile-based classification system.

P1: Working Professional

The P1 working professional profile covers the majority of health science professional jobs. This is the classification for the highly-trained and highly-qualified health science professionals who do the work that keeps our health care system running.

Being matched to this profile means that you’re using your post-secondary qualifications to – depending on your specific profession – work with patients/clients or perform diagnostic procedures.

This profile encompasses classifications that were, under the old classification system, called by a wide range of terms including grade 1, staff level, sole charge, student supervision, and working without general supervision. 

P2A: Special Procedures/Techniques

If your job involves working with patients/clients or performing diagnostic procedures – but doing work that is above the P1 level – then your job might match with the P2A special procedures/techniques profile.

This profile is for jobs that “involve a specialized area of practice [within your specific profession] which in turn requires a recognized level of expertise or competency obtained through specialized education, training and experience which is over and above the P1 working level and is required in order to carry out the duties”. Essentially, this means that your job involves work that couldn’t be done by another member of your profession who doesn’t have your specialized education, training, or experience.

For example, some current special procedures/techniques are computed tomography (CT scanning) for radiological technologists and cardiac rhythm devices for cardiology technologists.

One of the reasons that HSA’s classifications experts were excited about the profile-based classification system is that is gives us a way to add more types of work to the P2A profile. Right now, only 3 of the 70+ health science professions have special procedures/techniques so we are excited about gaining the ability to add special procedures/techniques for more professions.

Now that the new profile-based classification system has been fully implemented, there are provisions that allow for your union to advocate to recognize new special procedures and techniques by adding them to the P2A Special Procedures profile. This is an exciting opportunity to recognize and compensate the specialized work of many members who have jobs that are currently matched with the P1 profile.

Special Procedures are defined as:

"A recognized level of expertise or competency in a specialized area of practice. This qualification is obtained through specialized education, training, and experience, which is over and above the full-scope working level and is required in order to carry out duties.”

Since December 6, 2024, your union has received and confirmed enough information to move forward with P2A claims for ten professions. The professions and their special procedures/techniques are:

Audiologists

  • Auditory Brainstem Response
  • Cochlear Implant Management
  • Vestibular Assessment and Management

 
Dietitians

  • Parenteral Nutrition
  • Inborn Errors of Metabolism (IEM) Nutrition Therapy
  • Insertion of Nasogastric or Nasojejunal Feeding Tubes
  • Indirect Calorimetry
  • Renal Nutrition/Kidney Care
  • Insulin Dose Adjustment (IDA)
  • Certified Diabetes Education

 
Nuclear Medicine Technologists

  • Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Imaging
  • Computed Tomography (CT)
  • Radiation Safety Officer

 
Radiological Technologists

  • Screening Mammography

 
Speech-Language Pathologists

  • Flexible Endoscopic Evaluation of Voice and Swallowing (FEEVS) – Adults
  • Tracheo-esophageal Voice Prostheses Assessment and Management
  • Communication and Swallowing Management for Tracheostomy – Adults
  • Videofluroscopic Assessment of Swallowing Disorders – Adults
  • Videofluroscopic Assessment of Swallowing Disorders – Paediatrics
  • Management of Airway Secretions (Oropharyngeal Suctioning)
  • Management of Airway Secretions (Oropharyngeal and Tracheal Suctioning)

 
Diagnostic Medical Sonographers

  • Pediatric Echocardiography

 
Occupational Therapists

  • Hand Therapy
  • Low Vision Rehabilitation
  • Driver Rehabilitation

 
Pharmacists

  • Clinical Pharmacy
  • Oncology Clinical Pharmacy

 
Physiotherapists

  • Hand Therapy

 
Respiratory Therapists

  • Patient/Client Respiratory Education

If you think that your work meets the above definition and should be recognized as a new special procedure or technique, you should know that the P2A process is unique and does not require speaking to your steward or filing a grievance. Instead, please send us an email at redesign [at] hsabc.org letting us know about both your area of practice and your specialized education, training, and experience. Your union has heard from many members about their specialized areas of practice, but we are always ready to hear from more.

Staff in the classifications department are working to review submissions and build a case that shows how each proposed special procedure or technique meets the definition above.

We will notify affected members, by profession, as work is added to the P2A profile. Members classified as P1 who perform this work will be coded up or reclassified, as appropriate, based on whether the special procedure/technique is performed for the majority of their work time.

When a new special procedure or technique is added, retroactive pay will be effective from the date that the union gave notice that the procedure or technique should be recognized as part of the P2A profile.

There is no deadline for adding new special procedures or techniques to the P2A profile; members are encouraged to reach out to the union if they feel their work meets the definition above.

P2B: Advanced Working Professional

Unlike P1 and P2A, the main purpose of P2B jobs is not performing diagnostic procedures or working with patients/clients. Instead, the main purpose of jobs that fit the P2B profile is to provide clinical and/or technical advice and guidance to other health science professionals.

This profile encompasses jobs that were, under the previous classification system, classified as grade III, grade IV, grade V and grade VI.

There are five “sub-profiles” of the P2B profile, depending on the specific type of advice and guidance that you provide: