Marketing, Advertising, and Promotion Standard
The public can expect that licensed healthcare professionals’ marketing, advertising, and promotional activities will be accurate, honest, grounded in integrity, and presented in a manner that prioritizes the well-being and autonomy of patients while supporting informed decision making.
This Practice Standard applies to all forms of marketing, advertising, and promotion used by or on behalf of licensed healthcare professionals to communicate about themselves as professionals, their professional health services (including health products), and/or their professional practice. This includes business names, advertising, public statements, websites, social media, directory listings, the use of testimonials, and any other means of promoting or presenting professional services to the public or individuals, whether directly or through a third party.
A licensed healthcare professional is responsible for the content of all marketing, advertising, and promotion prepared on their behalf by a marketing agency or other third party and must ensure by contract that they are fully informed of all such communication with the public.
A licensee must:
- Be accurate and honest in marketing, advertising, and promotional activities, which means to:
- Use factual, accurate, and verifiable information, including in relation to claims about interventions, drugs, devices, and other health products.
- Clearly disclose relevant, important details to assist patients in making informed choices about their health and not omit material facts.
- Ensure that marketing, advertising, and promotional activities do not include false, incomplete, misleading, or deceptive claims or claims that could reasonably be interpreted as misleading or deceptive to the public.
- Limit statements or representations about health services, drugs, devices, or other health products to their scope of practice.
- Ensure that their status as a licensee is not used in connection with statements, representations, or endorsements about any property, investment, or service unrelated to their scope of practice.
- Refrain from creating unreasonable expectations or guarantees about the results of health products or health services.
- Meet the Regulatory Requirements for Advertising issued by Health Canada, as applicable.
- Not make statements about superiority in relation to other healthcare providers, which means to:
- Ensure they do not make false, misleading, unsubstantiated, or disparaging claims of superiority over other healthcare providers.
- Ensure that health information used in marketing, advertising, and promotions is consistent with current, evidence-informed practice.
- Uphold ethical communications principles, which means to:
- Ensure all marketing, advertising, and promotional communications—including those through social media—are respectful, culturally safe, and consistent with the HPOA, the CHCPBC Bylaws, and the Ethics and Practice Standards.
- Ensure marketing, advertising, and promotional communications do not use sensational, aggressive, or fear-based messaging.
- Ensure marketing, advertising, and promotional communications do not include content that may reasonably be perceived as discriminatory, defamatory, harassing, or otherwise harmful.
- Ensure marketing, advertising, and promotional communications do not exploit or otherwise seek to take advantage of a lack of public knowledge.
- Disclose commercial interests in conformance with the Conflict of Interest Standard, which means to:
- Disclose any financial interest in the health products they promote.
- Endorse health products or health services only if there is credible evidence supporting their efficacy.
- Correct errors, which means to:
- Regularly review marketing, advertising, and promotional communications to ensure they remain compliant with this Standard.
- Take prompt action to correct any errors in marketing, advertising, or promotional communications.
- Attend to third-party platforms and advertising, which means to:
- Monitor third-party content that references their health services (e.g., online reviews, directory listings) to ensure accuracy and consistency with this Standard.
- Promptly contact the individual or organization responsible for third-party content that references their health services to request correction or deletion of information that is not consistent with this Standard.
- Use professionalism in business solicitation, which means to:
- Ensure they do not engage in advertisement of free health services or other inducements for unnecessary or inappropriate health products or health services.
Glossary
Conflict of interest: the circumstance in which a healthcare professional’s duty to act in the interests of their patient, an individual, or the public may be—or may be perceived to be—affected or influenced by competing interests. Conflicts of interest can be real, potential, or perceived and may arise in a variety of circumstances, including financial, non-financial, direct, and indirect transactions with patients and others.
Evidence: reliable and relevant information used to inform professional judgment or decision making. This may include research findings, clinical or professional experience, practice data, expert consensus, or Indigenous or community knowledge systems recognized within their cultural context.
Evidence-informed: recognizing that evidence is one of several key inputs to professional judgment and decision making, balanced with contextual factors (such as ethics, values, or the needs of the patient or individual being assessed) to guide the final decision.
Health service: any service or activity provided by a licensee in relation to healthcare, including collecting information; assessing, diagnosing, preventing, monitoring, treating, or managing a person’s health or health-related condition; or providing health-related information to an individual or the public, whether or not treatment is provided.
Marketing, advertising, and/or promotion: any communication made orally, in print, through electronic media, via the internet, or in any other medium, by or on behalf of a licensee to the public, that is designed in whole or in part to promote the licensee’s professional health services and/or products or the practice setting in which they practise or with which they are associated.
Patient: a person to whom health services are provided. Throughout the Ethics and Practice Standards, “patient” includes substitute decision-makers, parents, and guardians where applicable.
Social media: online platforms and digital tools that enable individuals and/or organizations to create, share, and engage with content and to interact with others in public or semi-public virtual environments.
Testimonial: a statement, endorsement, or review (whether verbal, written, or recorded) by a patient or other individual that addresses their experience with a healthcare professional and/or their services or products.
Third party: an individual or organization other than the patient or the licensee who is involved in or affected by the provision of health or related services. Third parties may include employers, insurers, educators, regulators, service providers, or other persons or entities.