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Developing allied health professional support policy in Queensland: a case study

INTRODUCTION: Evidence suggests that professional support for allied health professionals contributes to improved clinical practice, better client outcomes, enhanced workplace satisfaction, increased workplace morale and better clinical governance within organizations. Despite these benefits, the up...

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Autores principales: Bell, Karen E, Hall, Fiona, Pager, Sue, Kuipers, Pim, Farry, Hayley
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4197267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25296763
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-12-57
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author Bell, Karen E
Hall, Fiona
Pager, Sue
Kuipers, Pim
Farry, Hayley
author_facet Bell, Karen E
Hall, Fiona
Pager, Sue
Kuipers, Pim
Farry, Hayley
author_sort Bell, Karen E
collection PubMed
description INTRODUCTION: Evidence suggests that professional support for allied health professionals contributes to improved clinical practice, better client outcomes, enhanced workplace satisfaction, increased workplace morale and better clinical governance within organizations. Despite these benefits, the uptake of formal professional support is surprisingly low and implementation often ad hoc. Further, research investigating the development, evaluation and outcomes of implementing policy to establish such support is limited. CASE DESCRIPTION: Queensland Health has developed an organization-wide approach to supporting allied health professionals through a Professional Support Policy and guidelines. The processes of development, implementation and the evaluation framework of this State-wide Professional Support Policy are described. An evidence-based Professional Support Policy that is structured, collaborative and well evaluated will have benefits for allied health professions. However, policy introduction cannot occur in isolation. Current practice does not follow current evidence in the area of professional support implementation. This study describes a current practice baseline for participation prior to the mandating of such a policy. There is a need for improvements in participation rates, documentation and capacity building. CONCLUSIONS: A workforce policy with broad scope should increase the access to, and consistency of, professional support to allied health practitioners. Such policy should facilitate a higher quality clinical practice, better client outcomes, enhanced workplace satisfaction and morale. It may also maximize the recruitment and retention of allied health professionals. Mandating policy should see participation commensurate with that policy. A future step will be a Post Policy Implementation Review to determine the success and effectiveness of the Professional Support Framework within Queensland Health. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1478-4491-12-57) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-41972672014-10-16 Developing allied health professional support policy in Queensland: a case study Bell, Karen E Hall, Fiona Pager, Sue Kuipers, Pim Farry, Hayley Hum Resour Health Case Study INTRODUCTION: Evidence suggests that professional support for allied health professionals contributes to improved clinical practice, better client outcomes, enhanced workplace satisfaction, increased workplace morale and better clinical governance within organizations. Despite these benefits, the uptake of formal professional support is surprisingly low and implementation often ad hoc. Further, research investigating the development, evaluation and outcomes of implementing policy to establish such support is limited. CASE DESCRIPTION: Queensland Health has developed an organization-wide approach to supporting allied health professionals through a Professional Support Policy and guidelines. The processes of development, implementation and the evaluation framework of this State-wide Professional Support Policy are described. An evidence-based Professional Support Policy that is structured, collaborative and well evaluated will have benefits for allied health professions. However, policy introduction cannot occur in isolation. Current practice does not follow current evidence in the area of professional support implementation. This study describes a current practice baseline for participation prior to the mandating of such a policy. There is a need for improvements in participation rates, documentation and capacity building. CONCLUSIONS: A workforce policy with broad scope should increase the access to, and consistency of, professional support to allied health practitioners. Such policy should facilitate a higher quality clinical practice, better client outcomes, enhanced workplace satisfaction and morale. It may also maximize the recruitment and retention of allied health professionals. Mandating policy should see participation commensurate with that policy. A future step will be a Post Policy Implementation Review to determine the success and effectiveness of the Professional Support Framework within Queensland Health. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1478-4491-12-57) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2014-10-08 /pmc/articles/PMC4197267/ /pubmed/25296763 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-12-57 Text en © Bell et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014 This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. 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 Case Study
Bell, Karen E
Hall, Fiona
Pager, Sue
Kuipers, Pim
Farry, Hayley
Developing allied health professional support policy in Queensland: a case study
title Developing allied health professional support policy in Queensland: a case study
title_full Developing allied health professional support policy in Queensland: a case study
title_fullStr Developing allied health professional support policy in Queensland: a case study
title_full_unstemmed Developing allied health professional support policy in Queensland: a case study
title_short Developing allied health professional support policy in Queensland: a case study
title_sort developing allied health professional support policy in queensland: a case study
topic Case Study
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4197267/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25296763
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1478-4491-12-57
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