Etty Sarah, Snaith Beverly, Hinchcliffe Daniella, Nightingale Julie
Department of Allied Health Professions, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK.
Faculty of Health Studies, University of Bradford, Bradford, UK.
J Multidiscip Healthc. 2024 May 13;17:2251-2269. doi: 10.2147/JMDH.S460543. eCollection 2024.
The demand for healthcare services internationally continues to increase, exacerbated by patient backlogs resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulties in recruiting and retaining healthcare staff. These difficulties have led to increased interest in workforce redesign, and the upskilling of existing staff in all areas of healthcare, including within the Allied Health Professions (AHP). Clinical support staff are a key component of workforce redesign, yet little has been documented on the utilization of this workforce across the wide range of professions that collectively form the AHP workforce. Existing research is also unclear due to the variety of titles used to describe them (eg, allied health assistants, therapy assistants, etc). This study aimed to review how Support Workers and Assistant Practitioners (SWAPs) are utilized within the AHP professions. Electronic databases (MEDLINE, CINAHL complete, Scopus, and Google Scholar) were searched to find English Language primary research articles that explored the deployment of clinical support staff within Allied Health. Following the scoping review methodology, data from each study were analyzed in terms of design, key findings, and implications. A quality assessment was also completed. Thirty-nine articles met the eligibility criteria. Studies were undertaken in Australia, UK, and USA, and covered a range of AHPs and methodological approaches. Most articles employed qualitative methods, with highly variable research quality identified. Key findings were that cost-effectiveness of this workforce has not been formally evaluated in any setting or AHP discipline, and that support workers are a largely underutilized staff group potentially due to inconsistencies in their deployment and scope of practice, and the lack of a clear career pathway. Rigorous, quantitative, and mixed methods research into the deployment and impact of this staff group is needed in order to gain a clearer understanding of how they are optimally utilized across the different AHP disciplines.
国际上对医疗服务的需求持续增长，新冠疫情导致的患者积压以及招聘和留住医护人员的困难加剧了这一情况。这些困难引发了人们对劳动力重新设计以及提升包括专职医疗专业人员（AHP）在内的所有医疗领域现有员工技能的兴趣。临床支持人员是劳动力重新设计的关键组成部分，但对于构成AHP劳动力的广泛专业领域中这一劳动力的利用情况，相关记录却很少。由于用于描述他们的头衔多种多样（例如，专职医疗助理、治疗助理等），现有研究也不明确。本研究旨在回顾支持工作者和助理从业者（SWAPs）在AHP专业中的利用情况。通过搜索电子数据库（MEDLINE、CINAHL complete、Scopus和谷歌学术）来查找探索专职医疗领域临床支持人员部署情况的英文初级研究文章。按照范围综述方法，对每项研究的数据从设计、主要发现和影响方面进行了分析。还完成了质量评估。39篇文章符合纳入标准。这些研究在澳大利亚、英国和美国开展，涵盖了一系列AHP专业和方法学途径。大多数文章采用定性方法，研究质量差异很大。主要发现是，在任何环境或AHP学科中，这一劳动力的成本效益都尚未得到正式评估，而且支持工作者在很大程度上是未得到充分利用的员工群体，这可能是由于他们的部署和实践范围不一致，以及缺乏明确的职业发展路径。需要对这一员工群体的部署和影响进行严谨的定量和混合方法研究，以便更清楚地了解如何在不同的AHP学科中对他们进行最佳利用。
