Allied HealthWays – a clinical guidance website for allied health in an integrated health system
Paula Eden
1 * , Graham McGeoch 2
1 Allied Healthways, Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand, Waitaha - Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.
2 The Canterbury Initiative, Canterbury District Health Board, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Journal of Primary Health Care 15(1) 84-89 https://doi.org/10.1071/HC22111
Published: 22 December 2022
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
Abstract
Background and context: The Canterbury health system adopted a whole-system approach towards integrated patient care. There was a need to optimise the use of allied health resources, across private and public settings.
Assessment of the problem: There was no common means for consensus and communication among allied health professions about consistent patient care, and barriers such as a lack of trust existed. This paper describes the implementation and monitoring of Allied Healthways, a website for allied health professionals, set up in 2017 using the HealthPathways approach.
Results: Over 100 pathways have been published on Allied Healthways, with >13 000 clinicians using the site in Canterbury. Targeted education sessions for allied health professionals, combined with newsletters, raised awareness of new pathways or changes in the system. A survey highlighted the usefulness of Allied Healthways, and the majority of respondents agreed that the site should be available nationwide.
Strategies for improvement: Development of pathways was found to be a useful mechanism for improving integration in the system. The workgroups and direct meetings engaged allied health professionals and helped achieve local consensus on pathways. They also enabled improvements to be designed and then communicated as a pathway.
Lessons learnt: Although the patient journey should be consistent, irrespective of their point of contact with the health system, guidance and processes need to be relevant to their target audience. It was essential to write pathways specifically for allied health professionals.
Keywords: allied health professionals, clinical pathways, community, consensus, health system change, patient care, quality improvement, survey, trust, whole of system.
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