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Shelagh Lowe,
University of Tasmania UDRH & Services for Australian Rural and Remote Allied Health (SARRAH)
Allied health workforce planning and service delivery requires research to be evidence based. But who and what is ‘allied health’? The term is a political construct. It is used by government jurisdictions that fund public health services to group together a range of health professions other than medicine or nursing. Increasingly it is accepted that ‘allied health professionals’ are tertiary qualified, working with health consumers on an individual basis, focusing on diagnosis and treatment of health conditions. Whilst the range of health professions included as ‘allied health’ varies according to the context, it is recognised that allied health services are essential for the health and well being of the Australian population.
It is known that there are significant gaps in allied health research both in relation to workforce and service delivery. Traditional scientific research involving randomised controlled trials to test the effectiveness of treatments is necessary across the range of professions involved in primary health care. In this context though ‘allied health’ research is individual profession based (eg. physiotherapy or psychology). It is difficult to conduct research that could truly be termed ‘allied health’ due to the multiple professions involved.
‘Allied health’ research is a complex issue, and is more likely to be systems or workforce based. Workforce research is tending to focus on the registered professions. However a number of allied health professions are not nationally registered (eg. audiology, occupational therapy, speech pathology, dietetics, social work), resulting in gaps in data that will impact on service planning to manage chronic disease. Treatment interventions by allied health professionals do not necessarily fit the randomised controlled trial (RCT) format of research, requiring quality of life measures or longitudinal studies.
The move towards a national primary health care strategy delivering health services by multi-professional health care teams must be accompanied by research and evaluation. As well as research based on RCTs, primary health care research, incorporating allied health services as well as medicine and nursing, must also deliver evidence on health systems, (eg. multi-professional team care), health workforce and the long term impact of health promotion activities.
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