Abstract
BackgroundThere is no standard way of describing the complexities of allied health (AH) care, or its quality. AH is an umbrella term which excludes medicine and nursing, and variably includes disciplines which provide therapy, diagnostic, or scientific services. This paper outlines a framework for a standard approach to evaluate the quality of AH therapy services.MethodsA realist synthesis framework describing what AH does, how it does it, and what is achieved, was developed. This was populated by the findings of a systematic review of literature published since 1980 reporting concepts of quality relevant to AH. Articles were included on quality measurement concepts, theories, debates, and/or hypothetical frameworks.ResultsOf 139 included articles, 21 reported on descriptions of quality potentially relevant to AH. From these, 24 measures of quality were identified, with 15 potentially relating to what AH does, 17 to how AH delivers care, 8 relating to short term functional outcomes, and 9 relating to longer term functional and health system outcomes.ConclusionsA novel evidence-based quality framework was proposed to address the complexity of AH therapies. This should assist in better evaluation of AH processes and outcomes, costs, and evidence-based engagement of AH providers in healthcare teams.
Highlights
There is no standard way of describing the complexities of allied health (AH) care, or its quality
We suggest evidence-based measures to assess the quality of AH therapy services (Table 2)
To make a start on measuring AH therapy quality, we suggest that the most common quality elements across our framework could be developed into ubiquitous measurable data items and performance indicators for all AH therapy services
Summary
There is no standard way of describing the complexities of allied health (AH) care, or its quality. There is already a considerable body of evidence describing a range of measures purporting to relate to healthcare quality, most of them relate to hospitals [10,11,12], medicine, or nursing [13,14,15]. AH is an umbrella term used to describe a range of health disciplines and ancillary services (excluding medicine and nursing) which provide therapy, organizational, and/or scientific services. The complexity of AH is such that there is no standardlyagreed definition It is usually described by discipline lists and/or tasks, which can vary between countries, government bodies, industry, healthcare settings, and training institutions [16,17,18,19,20,21]
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