Impact and feasibility of the Allied Health Professional Enhancement Program placements – experiences from rural and remote Queensland

Abstract

Background

Allied health professionals practicing in rural and remote areas are often faced with barriers that prevent them from accessing professional development opportunities. In order to address this barrier, a tailored professional development program was developed and implemented by the Cunningham Centre in Queensland, Australia. The purpose of this study was to investigate the benefits of the program to participants and their work units.

Methods

This study used a concurrent mixed methods longitudinal design to investigate the medium- to long-term benefits of one Allied Health Professional Enhancement Program placement. Surveys and individual interviews provided data at 2 weeks and at 6 months post-placement. The study participants included the placement participant (a physiotherapist), their line manager, clinical supervisor, and the placement facilitator.

Results

Results demonstrated that the placement resulted in various reported benefits to the placement participant, as well as to service delivery in their home location. Benefits of the placement reported by the participant included increased confidence, improved knowledge and skills, increased access to professional networks, and validation of practice. Benefits to service delivery reported included improved efficiencies, improved patient outcomes, and positive impact on other team members.

Discussion

This study found that the Allied Health Professional Enhancement Program placement investigated was beneficial to the participant and to service delivery. In addition, the benefits reported were sustained at 6 months post-placement. Despite the fact that this study showcases experiences from one setting, the findings from this study and the lessons learnt may be transferrable to other similar programs elsewhere due to its methodological strengths (such as rich descriptions of the program and use of typical case sampling). While this study provides emergent evidence of usefulness of the program to participants and their work units, further studies are warranted to investigate the direct benefits of such placements on patient care, which remains as the holy grail of the impact of professional development opportunities.

Conclusion

Allied Health Professional Enhancement Program placements can result in important benefits to the participant, their health service, and positively influence health care service delivery.

Keywords:

• allied health
• placements
• rural
• remote
• professional development

Supplementary material

Interview guide

1. Introduction questions

   • Tell me about your recent AHPEP placement experience

   • How did you find the placement?

     Probes: What aspects did you find useful/not useful? What aspects most benefitted/least benefitted you?

     Probes – Can you think of an example?

2. Benefits of the placement to yourself

   • Can I get your perspective in regards to whether or not the placement was beneficial to you?

     Probes – List a few words you would use to describe it?

   • How has this placement affected the routine duties you carry out within your work unit?

     Probes – How has it affected the way you feel about your professional skills/clinical skills/knowledge; your confidence; teamwork skills; clinical reasoning; assessment skills; intervention skills?

3. Benefits of the placement to your work unit

   Now let’s think about the benefits of the placement to your work unit

   • Can I get your perspective in regards to whether or not the placement has been beneficial to your work unit?

     Probes – In what way? Can you give an example?

   • Has the placement assisted you with service delivery issues and caseload planning?

     Probes – Do you have an example you can share with me?

   • If you could make a change (or changes) to routine practice/s in your work unit as a result of the placement, what would it/they be? What would make it easy to make these changes? What might make it hard to make these changes?

   • In what ways does the AHPEP placement affect patient outcomes?

     Would you like to comment on any other aspect of your AHPEP placement experience?

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the AHPEP case study participants for their contribution to this research project.

Author contributions

PM designed the project, obtained ethics approval, and led the research project. SK assisted with the project design and ethics application, and conducted the interviews. MS assisted with participant recruitment. LL assisted with data analysis. PM, SK, MS, LA, VB, and LL contributed to drafting and finalizing the manuscript. All authors contributed toward data analysis, drafting and critically revising the paper and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.