Allied health Professionals (physiotherapists, technologists/ scientists, nurses, psychologists, occupational therapists, nutritionists) work at the forefront of healthcare. The wide-ranging disciplines representing allied health constitute a large and rapidly growing healthcare workforce in Europe.
Allied Health Professionals share in the delivery of health care services related to the identification, evaluation, management and prevention of disease and disorders; dietary and nutritional services; and rehabilitation services.
The prevalence of allergic diseases has been accompanied by an increasingly prominent role for Allied Health Professional since the complexity of the condition demands a multidisciplinary team approach. Multidisciplinary care occurs when professionals from a range of disciplines with different but complementary skills, knowledge and experience work together to deliver comprehensive healthcare aimed at providing the best possible outcome for the physical and psychosocial needs of a patient and their carers. It is well-recognised that patients may benefit from multi-disciplinary team input providing allergy care, so that the ever-increasing burden of allergy care provision can be shared, and the patient’s needs are addressed by the person with the most appropriate skill set. In order to meet the growing demand for allergy services, it is important not only to make best use of available resources, but also to ensure continued quality and safety of service provision.
Aims
- To recognise allergy in all its diversity
- To work across professional boundaries, and encompass ‘horizontal and vertical integration’.
- To develop guidelines and position statements to aid healthcare professionals of all disciplines working within allergy.
- To support Allied Healthcare professionals in dissemination of competencies set by EAACI
- To establish a platform for regular exchange of scientific advances and achievements in the Allied Health area.
- To engage with Patient Advocacy Groups and other Working Groups within EAACI to foster awareness, education, and research and to provide an open and communicative relationship between patients and health professionals.
- To work to enhance ‘workforce agility’ to improve the current provision of allergy care and support the patient journey
Last updated 07 January 2019