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Woźnica D1,2
1Polish Chamber of Physiotherapists, Warsaw, Poland, 2Medical University of Gdańsk, Physiotherapy, Gdańsk, Poland
Background: Polish Chamber of Physiotherapists (PCPT) was established two years ago, to augment an Act of Physiotherapy Profession (APP) which was formulated in 2015, to protect the title, regulate basic scopes of practice and introduce mandatory registration. Despite relative economic development and changes due to coordinated Health System in Poland, public rehabilitation service is inefficient. Recent Audit concluded that despite increasing expenses, waiting time for physiotherapy in public sector has extended. On medical rehabilitation market in Poland, physiotherapists (PT) constitute a large majority on behalf of whom PCPT opted to influence the ineffective system.
Purpose: The goal was to present the path toward National Rehabilitation Reform performed by PCPT as well as the main barriers and facilities allowing the reform.
Methods: Description of the National Rehabilitation Reform as well as actions that had the greatest impact on the reform was divided on three main periods: before an Act of Physiotherapy profession (2015-2016); first year experiences of the Chamber (2017); recent experiences (2018).
Results: Since an Act of PT profession in Poland was firstly introduced as a public project it is mainly social support which had the major impact on changes among polish PT market. The success could be attributed to a mix of society support, luck and persistence of representatives of the professional environment. Increasing public awareness by explaining the PT market needs had a large impact on perception of the profession. Academic society had impact on formulating PCPT. Existence of PCPT facilitated occupational demands among all decision-making institutions connected with Public Health. Patients' disagreement on ineffective public rehabilitation market initiated national debate concerning the reform. Despite barriers such as political and medical views and differences occurring in the professional environment itself, Rehabilitation Reform has been initiated. It consists of three main issues: PT procedure changes allowing greater independence, PT report changes (ICF, e-documentations), and an improvement of coordination of General Practitioners- PT procedures.
Conclusion(s): Social demand, academic cooperation and PT all over the country associated with a Chamber allow us to constitute the Rehabilitation Reform.
Implications: Polish Rehabilitation Reform initiated by Chamber of Physiotherapists, on behalf of formal regulations included in APP, could facilitate direct access to PT on the public market.
Keywords: Reform, Physiotherapy, Public market
Funding acknowledgements: The present work was supported by the Polish Chamber of Physiotherapists.
Purpose: The goal was to present the path toward National Rehabilitation Reform performed by PCPT as well as the main barriers and facilities allowing the reform.
Methods: Description of the National Rehabilitation Reform as well as actions that had the greatest impact on the reform was divided on three main periods: before an Act of Physiotherapy profession (2015-2016); first year experiences of the Chamber (2017); recent experiences (2018).
Results: Since an Act of PT profession in Poland was firstly introduced as a public project it is mainly social support which had the major impact on changes among polish PT market. The success could be attributed to a mix of society support, luck and persistence of representatives of the professional environment. Increasing public awareness by explaining the PT market needs had a large impact on perception of the profession. Academic society had impact on formulating PCPT. Existence of PCPT facilitated occupational demands among all decision-making institutions connected with Public Health. Patients' disagreement on ineffective public rehabilitation market initiated national debate concerning the reform. Despite barriers such as political and medical views and differences occurring in the professional environment itself, Rehabilitation Reform has been initiated. It consists of three main issues: PT procedure changes allowing greater independence, PT report changes (ICF, e-documentations), and an improvement of coordination of General Practitioners- PT procedures.
Conclusion(s): Social demand, academic cooperation and PT all over the country associated with a Chamber allow us to constitute the Rehabilitation Reform.
Implications: Polish Rehabilitation Reform initiated by Chamber of Physiotherapists, on behalf of formal regulations included in APP, could facilitate direct access to PT on the public market.
Keywords: Reform, Physiotherapy, Public market
Funding acknowledgements: The present work was supported by the Polish Chamber of Physiotherapists.
Topic: Globalisation: health systems, policies & strategies
Ethics approval required: No
Institution: Polish Chamber of Physiotherapy
Ethics committee: Polish Chamber of Physiotherapy
Reason not required: it does not concern ethically incorrect issues
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
