Recent years have seen growing attention to ensuring the quality of continuing education (CE) across the health professions, including calls for transformation to a system that is specifically designed to foster, and is accountable for, ensuring competency. Competency-based education and training approaches have been widely adopted within other levels of education and training in psychology and across the health professions. A competency-based approach to the design of CE activities would facilitate transformation of the design and delivery of CE activities, thus providing opportunity for greater quality assurance. This article provides a brief history of competency-based education in psychology, including concordant efforts in other health professions. Factors that challenge the movement toward greater incorporation of a competency approach in CE will be described. These include a system designed around discrete learning opportunities, the focus on hours of instruction, learner preferences, and common assessment approaches. Current drivers for change exist that, if coupled with a focus on competency-based education, may expedite transformation, including policy recommendations, interprofessional collaborative practice as a service delivery model, and the shift toward value-based payment in health care. Recommendations for facilitating this transformation are presented.
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