Dr Caitlin Brandenburg1,2, Ms Joanne Hilder1, Ms Nicola Lemmo1,3, Mr Stan Earnshaw4, Mr Scott Plumbridge-Jones5, Ms Olivia Palac5, A/Prof Laetitia Hattingh1,6,7
1Allied Health Research, Gold Coast Health, Australia, 2Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Australia, 3Social Work, Gold Coast Health, Australia, 4Library Services, Gold Coast Health, Australia, 5Occupational Therapy, Gold Coast Health, Australia, 6School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences, Griffith University, Australia, 7School of Pharmacy, The University of Queensland, Australia
Biography:
Dr Caitlin Brandenburg is a Research Fellow at Metro South Health, Gold Coast Health and Bond University in Queensland. Caitlin's research interests are in health services research and clinician research capacity building.
Abstract:
Introduction:
Appropriate workforce allocation is vital to Allied Health service provision in the context of escalating healthcare demand nationally. This scoping review aimed to understand how allied health managers in hospital and health service settings make workforce resource allocation decisions to optimise workflow, including the approaches/tools they use and the factors which influence those decisions.
Methods:
A scoping review was conducted following the JBI methodology for scoping reviews. MEDLINE (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCOhost), Embase (Elsevier), and Web of Science (Core Collection) were searched for records published from 2004-2024 in English. All records were independently screened by two authors.
Articles were included if they focused on allied health leaders (participants) in the hospital and health service setting (context) and the information, approaches, frameworks, tools, guidelines or processes that they used for resource allocation or workforce planning (concept).
Results:
1896 title and abstracts, and 183 full text articles were screened, of which 79 were included. Articles mostly described strategies for workforce allocation, such as short-term prioritisation when demand escalates, reviewing existing staffing ratios, workforce modelling, and Allied Health Assistant delegation models.
Conclusion:
Overall, the existing literature highlights a need for a more data-driven and multifactorial approach to resource allocation in allied health. Current approaches are often reactive to immediate organisational pressures, rely on subjective information, and not linked to patient outcomes. There are limited tools to assist managers to proactively plan their workforce to maximise service efficiency and effectiveness.