The 1996 National Pilot Data Collection Project of the Association of Schools of Allied Health Professions

In summary, it is evident that there is a great need for the collection of much more definitive data. I believe these data are essential to those in decision making positions and ASAHP would be an appropriate organization to collect and disseminate these data. I would urge you all, when you receive a survey from ASAHP asking for manpower related data, to be certain that the survey is completed, is accurate, and is returned. We will try to insure that the instructions are clear and precise. Perhaps we need to make our data collections state specific. We certainly need to include information regarding the level of managed care in each institution's area so that we can begin to examine the effects of managed care on the placement of our graduates. I also believe it is important to identify trends in employment because this makes possible rational decisions about program size and discontinuation and also insure the provision of programs that will benefit our graduates and the communities we serve. Although data from this survey were not presented in this article, the author would like to express her profound gratitude to Ms. Soon Merz, Director of Institutional Research and Planning and Ms. Amy Rhoads, Associate Director of Institutional Research and Planning at Kansas University Medical Center for their considerable work in analyzing and summarizing the data.