How Much Allied Health Therapy Care Is Enough? An Evidence Scan.

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Allied Health Professions
• Health Economics

Background:

• Increasing global pressure to reduce low-value healthcare.
• Urgent need for evidence-based methods to assess allied health (AH) care value.
• Focus on identifying when additional AH care provides no further benefit.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically review published methods for determining the value of AH care.
• To identify established criteria for assessing the optimal provision of AH care.
• To determine if methods exist to establish when AH therapy is sufficient.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search of multiple databases (PubMed, MEDLINE, AMED, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Grey Literature Review) up to July 2018.
• Inclusion of peer-reviewed, English-language literature.
• Extraction of hierarchy of evidence, study design, and methods/measures for determining AH care value.

Main Results:

• 30 articles were included from 189 initially identified.
• 24 articles reported on methods for determining AH care value.
• 6 articles described optimal provision of AH care episodes.
• No methods were found to establish when sufficient AH therapy has been delivered.

Conclusions:

• A variety of value attributes in AH care exist, but no standard measure for 'enough' care was identified.
• Repeated measurement of value attributes and costs throughout AH care episodes is necessary.
• Understanding AH care impact from diverse stakeholder perspectives requires ongoing assessment.