In the April issue of the Health Professions e-Letter, we referenced a 1998 article, "Who is under the allied health umbrella ?," that looks at the term's history and identifies its pros (strength in numbers) and cons (loss of individual identity).
We asked whether the term "allied health" still serves a purpose. Some respondents felt that the term remains useful, if flawed; others said it's time to mothball it. Below are the responses we received, with identifying information removed. The views expressed here are not necessarily endorsed by the AMA.
The definition of "allied health" is one of exclusion--not medicine, nursing, pharmacy, chiropractic, etc. I am not sure with whom we are "allied." Are we "allied" as the "NOT professions" and with each other or with one of the non-allied health professions? Being lumped together may help us to have more political clout, but the variability of the education and practice expectations of the included professions make alliances difficult.
I certainly believe that "allied health" should be replaced by a more appropriate term, but I’m not sure what that term should be. Perhaps there should not be a generic, umbrella term, and each profession should be identified singularly by its recognized title. If we need a term to identify the schools and colleges that educate and train these professions, I suggest "health professions."
Yes, the description of the disciplines of "allied health" is outdated, Medical sciences is more appropriate description for the combined disciplines.
I have served on at least two national taskforces, both charged with defining "allied health" and trying to put some metrics together that would better define the vague term. Neither taskforce really succeeded.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics was heavily involved in one of the efforts, and the frustration they faced was the dozens of very small, very specialized health professions that are difficult to track and impossible to use in statistical analysis in any meaningful way. What we end up with is a relatively accurate picture (statistically speaking) of the larger allied health professions and, at the macro level, invisibility of the smaller professions.
In my opinion, you can't really market "allied health." Practitioners do not get their degrees or credentials in plain vanilla "allied health." Most students at my community college are only vaguely aware that they are part of the "Health Sciences Division"--they affiliate and identify more with the actual profession--nursing, medical assisting, respiratory care, surgical technology, dental assisting, etc. For that reason, I believe that using "allied health" as anything more than a broad phrase to encompass nonphysician health care practitioners is basically meaningless. Many health-related professions do not consider themselves to be a part of allied health. I think it is time for the term to go.
I understand the term to mean anyone who is not a physician or nurse. I think it serves the purpose, and there is a need to use the numbers these different professions represent in the political and policy making process.
In the referenced article, it notes that pharmacy, among others, is not considered an allied health profession. I didn't know that, and I think it should include every profession. Maybe we should use the term "healthcare providers" to include all health professions, even physicians and nurses? We are all in this together, even though there are those who would like to view themselves as more important than another. It really depends on what the client/patient needs at the time--that is the most important!!
Being grouped with so many other professions does tend to negate the importance of each individual profession. I agree there is power in numbers, but I think the "classification" is also what keeps medicine and nursing from truly seeing each of our professions as a unique, professional contributor to patient care.
I prefer the term "health professions."
I have pondered this question myself for a long time. I teach dental assisting. Where do you see dentistry/dental assisting? Are they considered to be included in "allied health?"
Note: The AMA's Health Professions Career and Education Directory considers dental assistants to be part of allied health, but not dentists.
If we want to preserve a term describing what "allied health" encompasses, I prefer the term "health professions" (or "health related professions") as an umbrella that covers all.
There is a saying that you can't please all of the people all of the time. During my years of being a physician assistant, I remember the discussion early on concerning "What should we call ourselves?" Earlier terms included Medex, physician assistant, and physician associate. Many argued that the term physician assistant did not adequately describe the magnitude of work performed by these professionals. To this day, there continues to be discussion on changing the name. Nonetheless, the term physician assistant was adopted by the majority and the name is quite common now. Even though it's a widely known profession (even included on TV shows), it's only been around for a little more than 35 years.
I think we can learn from this. In my opinion, the key was marketing. I don't see a problem with the term "allied health." It's just that we have not marketed it very well. We will never be able to satisfy everyone with a name; however, we can do better with marketing, publishing in key journals, and defining allied health for ourselves, rather than letting others define it for us.
Our school uses the term "health sciences" to include all allied health and nursing.
I have been out of school for 30 years and have always identified with allied health, so I've never really ever considered whether the title is too vague to be appropriate. Yet, like cerebral palsy, causalgia, and shin splints, the term could mean anything.
I wonder if just the term "healthcare professionals" would be less subservient and include nursing, physicians, chiropractors, etc.? I know that is moving a group split a little to a bigger vague term, but it could easily describe all persons working in health situations.
It is very true that patients do get a bit confused with the term, but this confusion stems from the divisions imposed by the professions themselves. I believe "allied health" should be described as a "team of professionally trained individuals who work together to ensure their patients receive the highest and most complete level of health care that no single professional can provide." If such a definition is understood by patients, I have no doubt that the level of stress today’s system creates will diminish through a sense of security and trust in their providers.
The question is: Have we forgotten our common goal of ensuring the well being of our patients and instead focused on pitiful professional warfare? Or are we forced by a highly disorganized system of HMOs and Medicare to adopt a "fight or die" attitude? I believe it is a little of both.
I'd vote for dumping the term if I could think of a better one! Until then, power in numbers is a cornerstone for most of our small professions and something I wouldn't be willing to sacrifice for new headings or titles.
According to Wikipedia, allied health includes positions that are allied with nursing and medicine but have distinct differences.
I have always viewed allied health as any health care occupation other than nursing or medicine that requires specific post-secondary education. I also believe that the label originated as a convenient and logical way for colleges to group the various professions.
We are in the midst of a nursing shortage that is predicted to be worse than any we have had before, and many who are in the know purport that hospitals will be forced to expand their use of allied health personnel. I believe that if we all work to fill our role in this shortage, a task that will no doubt be riddled with territorial issues, the label will work itself out.
I think we should dump the term allied health.
As a registered nurse, art therapist, and reflexologist working for a hospice organization, I don't mind at all being "lumped together" as an allied health professional. It is what I am and what I do, and I am pleased and proud to serve others in the health field.
Allied health as a term can be thought of as 1) a misnomer, 2) an oxymoron, or 3) a descriptive term.
- Some allied health professions with large numbers of practitioners may feel that their group is large enough to seek its own identity, thus not aligning with allied health. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, or radiologic technology, for example, have thousands of workers, whereas groups such as anesthesia assisting, medical illustration, and electroneurodiagnostic technology may not have as many students, nor be able to produce the number of graduates to meet the needs of the healthcare market.
I know each profession has its own pride in delivering the services needed. What has unfortunately happened in today's world appears to be the infringement on some areas in allied health that have similar or overlapping scopes of practice. Here's where the gloves come off and the turf battles begin, which does everything to "misalign" allied health. Many of these battles are evident in legislative practice act actions. - Allied health as an oxymoron (“a phrase in which two words of contradictory meaning are used together for special effect”): The number of allied health professions that want to splinter from the larger, more encompassing term of "allied" and become distinct is directly proportional to the number of workers in the field(s) delivering services and how much money is available for lobbying on behalf of these groups.
- Allied health as a descriptive term should remain in effect. Currently, bills are being introduced into Congress for the express purpose of supporting allied health. By ensuring that "allied health" remains the term used, perhaps legislators and consumers alike will start to understand what we all do and take such pride in when delivering services in our chosen profession.
I would like to see allied health remain a viable term so that the millions of workers that comprise this professional sector will unite nationwide to help ensure investments in the best interests of all patients/consumers, students, and schools/hospitals. As befits "allied" health, we should be fostering alliances.
The term has never made sense to me, and I doubt the general public knows what it means-- which is the real problem. I strongly agree with points made in the article about the value of an umbrella organization; I just think it's the wrong term. It's generic--and thus meaningless. More importantly, it doesn't connote these disciplines' involvement in healthcare, as opposed to health in general.
Dictionaries define health in terms of an overall state of body and mind, connoting freedom from disease; healthcare is defined as having to do with maintaining or restoring good health. I would like to see "allied health" replaced by "healthcare professionals" or something similar that is more descriptive and meaningful. That's a pretty tall order in view of the prevalence of the allied health term, but you have to start somewhere.
"Health care profession" gives a better understanding of what the programs are about. "Allied health" is a foreign term to those not in health education or the education system. I am for the change!
Sometimes it's easy to forget about the politics and business side of medicine, when you are immersed in the day-to-day operation of saving lives. For patients seeking health care for themselves or a family member, "allied health" means support, dedication, and trust in the health care industry. The health care system in the United States faces a myriad of problems, and the true meaning of allied health care has been forgotten and politicized. Patient care has improved remarkably over the years, and continues to do so; the future of allied health is unforeseen, but the dedication of those who work and serve in health care is not.
I found the article on allied health very, very interesting. If you think about anyone under that umbrella being an "ally" to the rest of the group, it is simply explained. I do not think that individual organizations can cease to exist, especially since those certified in a profession need to continue the specialized continuing education in their field. I also found the last comment interesting (I work in a career technical educational facility) in that we must be careful in our thinking that all persons who are interested in working in health care must obtain a college degree. This makes me think of a statement I heard a while back--"I would rather someone know exactly how to perform health care duties than only have read the book."
While I can’t provide a precise definition of what allied health is, it is clear that it falls short of being totally accepted as physician-based. A profession included in this group does not necessarily have to remain there. One striking example is podiatric medicine and surgery, which over the past few decades, has evolved from being an autonomous allied health profession to a physician-based one.
Podiatry has made this leap by upgrading its education and training, with the goal of achieving parity with allopathic and osteopathic medicine. Podiatric students now take the MCATs for admission, and at several podiatric medical schools, sit side-by-side with allopathic and osteopathic students. Podiatric graduates now complete either two or three-year medical and surgical residencies, as well as fellowship programs. The result is well-trained podiatric physicians, who have become international leaders in areas such as reconstructive rear foot surgery, diabetic wound care, and sports medicine.
My personal bias is that "allied health" is indeed an outdated term.
As the article pointed out, most health disciplines want to retain their individual identity. Academically, however, we are usually clustered in a health sciences division or department, as the case may be, particularly in the community college system. In my opinion, part of the issue is that the allied health umbrella does not include nursing. And yet, in the health sciences academic realm, nursing is typically included. My consistent concern is that if we don't learn to learn together, how can we be expected to be collaborative in the workplace?
The article noted, for instance, that dental hygienists and respiratory therapists do not collaborate--but they should. There are respiratory concerns when there is periodontal disease present.
We must learn how to effectively interact and collaborate for the wellness of our clients/patients. And, if I may be so bold, the need for collaboration may be the greatest with nursing.
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