The allied health professions form approximately 18% of the health workforce in Australia and are well placed to contribute to future multidisciplinary models of health care. There are many reports describing the health workforce in Australia for the medical and nursing professions but there is very little information available about the nature of the allied health workforce. Recent studies hav...

Many professionals work closely with physicians and nurses to provide healthcare that is safe, patient-centered, efficient, equitable, timely, and effective. These professionals represent many and varied allied health disciplines. Each allied health professional is ethically accountable for bringing a theoretically-sound and evidence-based approach to problem-solving in healthcare delivery. Alt...

OBJECTIVE The aim of the present study was to identify areas where allied health assistants (AHAs) are not working to their full scope of practice in order to improve the effectiveness of the allied health workforce. METHODS Qualitative data collected via focus groups identified suitable AHA tasks and a quantitative survey with allied health professionals (AHPs) measured the magnitude of work...

The allied health workforce is currently in a very exciting and unique position to demonstrate leadership in health care and health workforce reform. Much has been documented regarding the challenges that the healthcare system is currently facing and is likely to face in the coming decades. We know we have an aging population, higher incidents of chronic disease and predicted workforce shortage...

The study reported in this paper compared data from 20 separate focus groups, representing providers and consumers of health services in the Grampians region, Victoria, on their perceptions of the allied health service issues in that region. The results of the study indicated that providers and consumers raised many similar issues in regard to allied health services--access to allied health ser...