The ADAPT model: integrating employer insights into a framework for practice-ready health professions graduates

Healthcare systems rely on a skilled and diverse workforce to deliver patient-centred care across settings. Rising patient acuity, rapid technological change, and interprofessional collaboration have heightened expectations for graduates to be "practice-ready" on entry to the workforce. Health professions education (HPE) must therefore extend beyond discipline-specific knowledge to prepare graduates for real-world practice. Employers, as key stakeholders, are uniquely positioned to assess this readiness, yet their perspectives are seldom explored. This study explores employer views on how well HPE curricula prepare recent graduates for independent clinical practice, to inform future educational and workforce strategies.

Employers of recent graduates from a range of healthcare disciplines participated in semi-structured interviews. These in-depth discussions captured perceptions of graduate preparedness, and an inductive thematic analysis was undertaken to identify patterns and develop themes reflecting readiness for practice.

Thirty-one employers from medicine, nursing, podiatry, physiotherapy, oral health, speech therapy, social work, nutrition and dietetics, and multidisciplinary clinical services contributed to the study. Four themes were identified. Patient-Centred Care was consistently prioritised, with graduates generally seen as capable, particularly in structured environments. Clinical Competence was perceived as a continuum, with strong readiness in routine care but limited preparedness for emergencies and complex scenarios. Transition to Practice emerged as a critical phase requiring structured support, digital literacy, and systems navigation. Finally, Wellbeing and Adaptability reflected concerns around resilience, sustainability, and self-directed learning in high-pressure settings. These findings informed the development of the ADAPT model, comprising five interdependent domains of graduate readiness.

This study contributes a novel, employer-informed framework for graduate readiness, extending existing models of employability to include adaptive capacity, system fluency, and wellbeing. To align with the ADAPT model for practice-ready professionals, training pathways must foster clinical reasoning and communication, embed resilience and interprofessional collaboration, and use structured frameworks for transitioning to practice. The results carry practical implications for HPE curriculum design and workforce preparedness strategies, ensuring that graduates are not only knowledgeable, but also adaptable and sustainable contributors to healthcare systems.