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Updates to practice standards for nurses: Consent, Privacy and Confidentiality, and Documentation


Jun 10, 2025

On June 4, 2025, the BCCNM board approved revisions to three nursing practice standards: Consent, Privacy and Confidentiality, and Documentation. These revised standards take effect Aug. 5, 2025.

Review the revised standards:

Consultation

A thorough review and analysis of the Consent, Privacy and Confidentiality, and Documentation practice standards was undertaken to ensure alignment with legislative requirements and evidence-based practice. This included jurisdictional and literature scans, website evaluations, data trend analysis, as well as extensive engagement with key audiences—including Indigenous audiences, health authority partners, and surveys of both registrants and the public.

Key changes

  • Consent: Outlines that consent must be voluntary, informed, and made by a capable individual. It includes expectations for obtaining inform​ed consent, and additional expectations related to written consent.

  • Privacy and Confidentiality: This standard outlines expectations for collecting client personal information, conditions for access of client personal information by ​others, actions to take to safeguard personal information, and actions to take when there is a privacy breach (when information is shared inappropriately).

  • Documentation: Outlines additional expectations on documentation including transparent error correction, highlights the importance of cultural safety and non-discriminatory language, affirms clients' right to access and request corrections of their own records following organizational policies a​​nd processes, and introduces a new section on the use artificial intelligence (AI).

 Questio​ns?

Connect with our Standards support team.​ 


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Canada

info@bccnm​.ca
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We acknowledge the rights and title of the First Nations on whose collective unceded territories encompass the land base colonially known as British Columbia. We give specific thanks to the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ speaking peoples the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations and the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh-ulh Sníchim speaking Peoples the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation), on whose unceded territories BCCNM’s office is located. We also give thanks for the medicines of these territories and recognize that laws, governance, and health systems tied to these lands and waters have existed here for over 9000 years.

We also acknowledge the unique and distinct rights, including rights to health and wellness, of First Nations, Inuit​ and Métis peoples from elsewhere in Canada who now live in British Columbia. As leaders in the settler health system, we acknowledge our responsibilities to these rights under international, national, and provincial law.​