Community health centre evaluation. Paper 1: Working patterns of allied health professionals

Community health centres are a new development on the Australian health scene and current indications are that they may play a greater role in the delivery of primary health care of the future. Therefore, information about these centres, what they are doing and who they are affecting, must be forthcoming if more public funds are to be channelled their way. The study reported here and in subsequent papers attempts an in-depth examination of the Southern Memorial Hospital--Community Care Centre for the purpose of establishing a base line from which this centre can measure its progress and with which other centres providing health care can compare. This paper reports the methodology of the evaluation study and the results of a survey of the working patterns of allied health professionals.