NEW Custom Benchmark Report for Subscribing Members: Allied Health Utilization An Overview on How to Interpret Results

The Allied Health Utilization report provides an overview of the relative investment in allied health resources across ambulatory and inpatient settings. Hospitals can use this report to compare their investments internally across care settings, and externally across peer hospitals.

The report is organized by each Allied Health discipline: Respiratory Services, Pharmacy, Clinical Nutrition, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech Language Therapy, Social Work, Audiology, Pastoral Care and Therapeutic Recreation.

Each report by discipline provides two key indicators on utilization:

1. Percentage of Outpatient Therapy (excluding ED)
2. Worked Hours per Day by Care Setting: Acute, Rehab, Psych, CCC, and ED

Percentage of Outpatient Therapy (excluding ED)

This indicator measures the proportion of Allied Health resources spent on outpatient therapy excluding the emergency department (ED). A relatively higher proportion than peers may be reflective of a specialty ambulatory program requiring a higher investment in Allied Health. However, a higher proportion than peers may also be an opportunity to consider whether Community providers could sufficiently deliver the same services to enable the hospital to focus its resources on either the inpatient or emergency setting.

Worked Hours per Day

Worked Hours per Day is a common indicator for analysis of operating efficiency. The metric allows for a standardized comparison of the amount of resources spent per day relative to peers. By presenting this metric across various care settings, an organization can better understand the investments in allied health resources across the hospital and amongst peers. A higher amount of Worked Hours per Day in one area may be reflective of an intentional investment in a specialty program. However, a higher spend in a particular discipline or care setting may be an opportunity to consider whether resources should be diverted to other priority areas.

The Allied Health Distribution of Care Report is available to Subscribing Members under the Custom Benchmark Report Series section of the BIG Benchmarking tool. These reports contain information for all acute and non-acute hospitals and are available to download.