Background:
Allied Health Professionals today are required, more than ever before, to demonstrate theimpact of their practice. However, despite at least 20 years of expectation, many services failto deliver routine outcome measurement in practice. This systematic review investigates whathelps and hinders routine outcome measurement of allied health professionals practice.
Methods:
A systematic review protocol was developed comprising: a defined search strategy forPsycINFO, MEDLINE and CINHAL databases and inclusion criteria and systematicprocedures for data extraction and quality appraisal. Studies were included if they werepublished in English and investigated facilitators and/or barriers to routine outcomemeasurement by allied health professionals. No restrictions were placed on publication type,design, country, or year of publication. Reference lists of included publications were searchedto identify additional papers. Descriptive methods were used to synthesise the findings.
Results:
960 papers were retrieved; 15 met the inclusion criteria. Professional groups represented werePhysiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech and Language Therapy. The includedliterature varied in quality and design. Facilitators and barriers to routine outcomemeasurement exist at individual, managerial and organisational levels. Key factors affectingprofessionals’ use of routine outcome measurement include: professionals’ level ofknowledge and confidence about using outcome measures, and the degree of organisationaland peer-support professionals received with a view to promoting their work in practice.
Conclusions:
Whilst the importance of routinely measuring outcomes within the allied health professions iswell recognised, it has largely failed to be delivered in practice. Factors that influenceclinicians’ ability and desire to undertake routine outcome measurement are bi-directional:they can act as either facilitators or barriers. Routine outcome measurement may only bedeliverable if appropriate action is taken at individual therapist, team, and organisationallevels of an organisation.