Sustaining an Allied Health Workforce:
Developing a Pan-Canadian Blueprint and Innovations Guide

Allied Health Providers are highly skilled health professionals who deliver key diagnostic, therapeutic, rehabilitation, home care, long term care and other clinical services essential to sustaining an efficient and effective health care system. As well, many play a crucial role in research, management and health policy.

Issue
An adequate supply of allied health professionals is critical to maintaing patient access to health care services in all regions and avoiding excessive wait times for medical procedures. Over the past decade, demand for many allied health professionals has fluctuated significantly, resulting in periods of critical shortages in supply, and reduced patient access to medical services.

Factors affecting the demand for allied health professions include changes in patient populations, advances in medical technology and knowledge, patterns of clinical practice and demographics within individual health professions. Supply issues include changes in enrollment rates and quotas in entry-level educational programs, reductions in clinical training capacity and pre- and post-employment attrition from certain professions.

To ensure a sustainable allied health workforce, it is critical that a proactive, pan-Canadian approach be taken to supply and demand issues in the professions.