Dr David Snowdon's research explores how allied health assistants can play an important role in delivering rehabilitation and supporting patient recovery in hospital.
“Mobility rehabilitation, which involves exercises that increase walking and physical activity, is key to improving outcomes for people in hospital,” he says. “However, providing this level of rehabilitation can be challenging in a health system facing significant workforce pressures.”
While allied health assistants provide rehabilitation under the delegation and supervision of physiotherapists, they are typically underutilised in acute hospital settings.
To address this, Dr Snowdon conducted two clinical trials to investigate whether mobility rehabilitation can be effectively provided by allied health assistants in an acute hospital.
“We found that allied health assistants can safely provide mobility rehabilitation to hospital patients, including people recovering from hip fracture surgery and older adults admitted to general medical wards with multiple health conditions.”
The trials also found that allied health assistants were more likely to walk patients each day compared to physiotherapists.
Dr Snowdon says his research has important implications for how physiotherapists delegate care to allied health assistants.
"Allied health assistants can provide safe, high-quality care and they are likely underutilised in hospitals. Better use of this workforce could help address the current global shortage of healthcare professionals."
Dr Snowdon plans to use the data from his two clinical trials for further clinical trial work.
“Our aim is to confirm the effect of allied health assistant mobility rehabilitation on patient length of stay and costs of care. Specifically, we hypothesise that allied health assistant mobility rehabilitation will reduce length of stay and cost of care for patients in hospital.”
