AMA's Role in Recognizing New Health Occupations

Abstract

For more than a decade, voices from multiple sectors have decried the proliferation and fragmentation of allied health occupations. The American Medical Association has opposed the multiplication of new categories of allied health personnel when the need for them has not been demonstrated. At the same time, however, the AMA has contended that some new types of health care personnel are indeed necessary and desirable. Each new occupation that emerges cannot be dismissed summarily under the rubric of proliferation or fragmentation, for not all proliferation is unnecessary, nor is all fragmentation divisive. Some new occupations arise in response to needs generated by new technologies, new delivery modes, or newly developed bodies of knowledge. The AMA attempted to rationalize its process of recognizing emerging health occupations in 1970 when it adopted Guidelines for the Development of New Health Occupations , which contain criteria for recognizing new health occupations. Such recognition is for