Allied Health Insights Vol.3 No.15: Strengthening Allied Health Integration and Engagement – Addressing the Challenges and Leveraging New Networks

The Underutilisation of Allied Health Professionals

Allied health professionals (AHPs) represent the largest segment of the community-based health workforce. Yet despite their numbers and potential, they are often under-utilised in health systems that predominantly focus on and fund acute care over preventive measures and reablement.

This underutilisation prevents allied health from making the greatest impact possible on community health outcomes. If, as government estimates, every $1 on preventive health saves around $14.30 in healthcare and other costs, more effective utilisation of allied health can result in far more efficient healthcare delivery while improving the quality of the patient experience.

Five Key Challenges in Allied Health

The effective utilisation of allied health is hampered by the following factors:

1. Lack of Workforce Data: The notable scarcity of comprehensive data on the allied health workforce hampers the ability to measure and enhance the impact of AHPs effectively, and to design strategies that will optimise their use.
2. Fragmentation and Innovation Translation: Allied health is characterised by fragmentation—across disciplines, jurisdictions, sectors and funding types—which complicates the dissemination and adoption of innovative practices. This wastes precious funding on unnecessary duplicative work, and disadvantages the community, as initiatives and new ways of working already proven in other locations are not methodically shared across the system for potential implementation.
3. Invisibility of Expertise: The skills and expertise of allied health professionals are not sufficiently recognised or leveraged, leading to a diminished presence within the broader health system (e.g. piecemeal representation on primary health network boards, and in management positions).
4. Workforce Challenges: Issues like recruitment difficulties, retention challenges, complex career pathways, and lack of consistent workforce planning data (the last of these especially applicable to the self-regulating allied health professions) are prevalent.
5. Acute Care Focus Over Prevention: The predominant focus on acute care sidelines the significant role that AHPs can play in preventive health and rehabilitation services, and contributes to an increased burden on hospitals and other acute settings and increased cost to the health system.

These challenges are not insurmountable, but as health system pressures continue to increase, they are a call to action for us to work together to do things differently; for the benefit of AHPs, employers, funders, government and the community.

The time has come to try something new.

Introducing The New National Allied Health Networks

We are introducing two ground-breaking online networks to support the health sector to address these challenges:

• the Public Sector Allied Health Network (PSAHN); and
• the Primary Care Allied Health Network (PCAHN).

Designed to support AHPs and Allied Health Assistants (AHAs) by enhancing visibility and facilitating career development, these Networks will simultaneously break down barriers like inadequacy of available data about the workforce, and help maximise economies of scale and shared learning.

Network Benefits

Each Network, within either primary health or public sector health, is designed to have both a national and local impact.

Key benefits:

• Data: Each year, AHPs and AHAs within the Networks will be surveyed to gather critical workforce data to guide strategic decisions and policy development, with national level and organisational (or regional, in the case of PHN) member reports providing benchmarking and insights for local impact.
• Communities of Practice: Through our online community of practice platform, The Allied Health Academy, national communities of practice will enable the sharing of innovations and best practices across allied health. Each public sector organisation or PHN will have their own private community, while forming part of a national allied health community to take advantage of the economies of scale that can be achieved atthat level.
• Communities of Practice: Through our online community of practice platform, The Allied Health Academy (link to article) national communities of practice will enable the sharing of innovations and best practices across allied health. Each public sector organisation or PHN will have their own private community, while forming part of a national allied health community to take advantage of the economies of scale that can be achieved at that level.
• Connection: Facilitate connections between AHPs and AHAs with peers across different regions and specialties, fostering a supportive community environment.
• Training: Include high-quality Continuing Professional Development (CPD) opportunities, including online courses, which may be used to meet CPD requirements.
• Monthly Newsletter: A platform for disseminating innovative ideas and good practices within each Network.
• Monthly webinars for each national community of practice, on topics of relevant across the Network’s allied health workforce.
• Workforce Support: Access to a dedicated job market for global allied health opportunities, addressing recruitment and retention challenges.
• Voice: Establish a collective, interdisciplinary voice for AHPs, enhancing their influence and visibility within the health sector.

PLUS inclusion of the innovative 

Nexus Dashboard

: A tool for geospatial mapping of allied health needs and supply, supporting effective workforce planning and resource allocation.

Through these Networks and tools, we aim to elevate the role of AHPs in the health system, ensuring they are fully integrated into the planning and delivery of health services, and enable a more efficient health system. This outcome promises to enhance the professional lives of the allied health workforce and also to significantly improve health outcomes for our communities, nationwide.

Early Registration Offer

Act quickly to secure your place: if your PHN or public health provider signs up before June 30, you will receive a discount on the annual membership subscription, secure your workforce’s inclusion in the inaugural survey, and gain strategic benefits positioning your organisation as a leader within the network.

Contact Lauren Schneider, Chief Operating Officer, at lauren@hwitl.com or on 0402905582 to explore your options.

About HealthWork International

HealthWork International is dedicated to improving global population health, and offers a comprehensive suite of services focused on enhancing service delivery and accessibility in health workforce planning and development.

Please review our attached prospectus or contact us with any queries.