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Percy L.1, Sheppard L.1, Flynn C.2, Bell A.2
1Australian Physiotherapy Council, Melbourne, Australia, 2Physiotherapy Board of Australia, Melbourne, Australia
Background: In line with legislation which guides the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (NRAS) the Australian Physiotherapy Council (the Council) is appointed by the Physiotherapy Board of Australia (the Board) as the Accrediting Authority for entry-level physiotherapy programs in Australia. In 2015-2016 the Council completed a review of the Accreditation Standard. After an extensive consultation process and collaboration with four of the other regulated health professions' appointed Accreditation authorities, the new Accreditation Standard was agreed, and submitted to the Board for approval.
Purpose: A review of the Accreditation Standard was undertaken at the request of the Physiotherapy Board of Australia, in accordance with the legislation. The development process took into account Australian and international benchmarks and available research and other evidence both within and external to the physiotherapy profession.
Methods: The first stage of the development project was the formation of an Expert Reference Group, to support the development of an initial consultation paper to ascertain stakeholder satisfaction with the existing Accreditation Standard and to identify key issues to be addressed in the review. The resulting consultation paper was released and stakeholders invited to respond via an online survey, focus groups or teleconferences. The feedback from this first stage informed the development of the first draft of the new Accreditation Standard.
The draft Accreditation Standard was published on the Council website and promoted via direct email to stakeholders and the membership of the Australian Physiotherapy Association. Based on feedback received a further draft was developed.
During this development phase the outcomes of a scheduled government review of the NRAS were published. A key outcome of the review was the need to align accreditation protocols across the various Health Professions. The Council decided to investigate the potential to harmonise the draft Accreditation Standard with other health professional accreditation authorities. After collaboration with four other authorities the draft Accreditation Standard was further refined and published for consultation. The feedback confirmed that it was appropriate to harmonise the Accreditation Standard with other Health Professions, whilst contextualising to Physiotherapy by referencing the Physiotherapy Practice Thresholds.
The final stage was the development of an Evidence Guide to provide detail to the Education Providers in the preparation of accreditation applications, assist accreditation assessment teams in the types of evidence they should consider and to further contextualise a harmonised standard to the physiotherapy profession, which would ultimately satisfy the Board that Australian graduates have the knowledge, skills and attributes to practise physiotherapy safely.
Results: The new Accreditation Standard has been harmonised with the Standards of four other Australian Health Practitioner Accreditation authorities, to the extent that they have the same five domains: Public Safety; Academic Governance and Quality Assurance; Program of Study; Student Experience and Assessment. Compared to the previous iteration there is greater emphasis on the protection of the public and the approach is more outcomes focused in order to facilitate innovation within programs.
Conclusion(s): The project represents shared development and interprofessional collaboration of an Accreditation Standard.
Implications: There is potential to extend the harmonisation of the Accreditation Standard to other professions.
Funding acknowledgements: Physiotherapy Board of Australia
Topic: Education
Ethics approval: Ethics approval not required
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
