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Pilot implementation of allied health assistant roles within publicly funded health services in Queensland, Australia: results of a workplace audit

BACKGROUND: Allied health assistants provide delegated support for physical therapists, occupational therapists and other allied health professionals. Unfortunately the role statements, scope of practice and career pathways of these assistant positions are often unclear. To inform the future develop...

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Autores principales: Stute, Michelle, Hurwood, Andrea, Hulcombe, Julie, Kuipers, Pim
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4074147/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24935749
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-258
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author Stute, Michelle
Hurwood, Andrea
Hulcombe, Julie
Kuipers, Pim
author_facet Stute, Michelle
Hurwood, Andrea
Hulcombe, Julie
Kuipers, Pim
author_sort Stute, Michelle
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Allied health assistants provide delegated support for physical therapists, occupational therapists and other allied health professionals. Unfortunately the role statements, scope of practice and career pathways of these assistant positions are often unclear. To inform the future development of the allied health assistant workforce, a state-wide pilot project was implemented and audited. METHODS: New allied health assistant positions were implemented in numerous settings at three levels (trainee level, full (standard) scope and advanced scope level). Six months after implementation, 41 positions were audited, using a detailed on-site audit process, conducted by multiple audit teams. RESULTS: Thematically analysed audit findings indicated that both the full (standard) scope and the advanced scope positions were warranted, however the skills of the allied health assistants were not optimally utilised. Contributing factors to this underutilization included the reluctance of professionals to delegate clinical tasks, inconsistencies in role descriptions, limitations in training, and the time frame taken to reach an effective skill level. CONCLUSIONS: Optimal utilisation of assistants is unlikely to occur while professionals withhold delegation of tasks related to direct patient care. Formal clinical supervision arrangements and training plans should be established in order to address the concerns of professionals and accelerate full utilisation of assistants. Further work is necessary to identify the key components and distinguish key features of an advanced allied health assistant role.
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spelling pubmed-40741472014-06-28 Pilot implementation of allied health assistant roles within publicly funded health services in Queensland, Australia: results of a workplace audit Stute, Michelle Hurwood, Andrea Hulcombe, Julie Kuipers, Pim BMC Health Serv Res Research Article BACKGROUND: Allied health assistants provide delegated support for physical therapists, occupational therapists and other allied health professionals. Unfortunately the role statements, scope of practice and career pathways of these assistant positions are often unclear. To inform the future development of the allied health assistant workforce, a state-wide pilot project was implemented and audited. METHODS: New allied health assistant positions were implemented in numerous settings at three levels (trainee level, full (standard) scope and advanced scope level). Six months after implementation, 41 positions were audited, using a detailed on-site audit process, conducted by multiple audit teams. RESULTS: Thematically analysed audit findings indicated that both the full (standard) scope and the advanced scope positions were warranted, however the skills of the allied health assistants were not optimally utilised. Contributing factors to this underutilization included the reluctance of professionals to delegate clinical tasks, inconsistencies in role descriptions, limitations in training, and the time frame taken to reach an effective skill level. CONCLUSIONS: Optimal utilisation of assistants is unlikely to occur while professionals withhold delegation of tasks related to direct patient care. Formal clinical supervision arrangements and training plans should be established in order to address the concerns of professionals and accelerate full utilisation of assistants. Further work is necessary to identify the key components and distinguish key features of an advanced allied health assistant role. BioMed Central 2014-06-16 /pmc/articles/PMC4074147/ /pubmed/24935749 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-258 Text en Copyright © 2014 Stute et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Stute, Michelle
Hurwood, Andrea
Hulcombe, Julie
Kuipers, Pim
Pilot implementation of allied health assistant roles within publicly funded health services in Queensland, Australia: results of a workplace audit
title Pilot implementation of allied health assistant roles within publicly funded health services in Queensland, Australia: results of a workplace audit
title_full Pilot implementation of allied health assistant roles within publicly funded health services in Queensland, Australia: results of a workplace audit
title_fullStr Pilot implementation of allied health assistant roles within publicly funded health services in Queensland, Australia: results of a workplace audit
title_full_unstemmed Pilot implementation of allied health assistant roles within publicly funded health services in Queensland, Australia: results of a workplace audit
title_short Pilot implementation of allied health assistant roles within publicly funded health services in Queensland, Australia: results of a workplace audit
title_sort pilot implementation of allied health assistant roles within publicly funded health services in queensland, australia: results of a workplace audit
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4074147/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24935749
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-14-258
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